


Do Androids Dream On The Fury Road?

by KirkyPet



Category: Blade Runner (Movies), Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Humanity, Non-Graphic Violence, Suicide Attempt, questionable medical ethics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 10:45:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 21,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17078858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirkyPet/pseuds/KirkyPet
Summary: The term ‘witness’ comes from the certificate of birth which must be signed by multiple witnesses of the actual birth. Blood spots from witnesses were a later addition, their time signature is an indication of when the certificate was witnessed, an extra level of authenticity.‘Do You Know The Way To San Jose’ by Dionne Warwick is the official soundtrack to this story, for hopefully obvious reasonshttps://open.spotify.com/track/1YIWYzMq84I46LmgX1vpye?si=oxmltOwgRnus_nbMG2oqGwHere’s Roy Batty’s famous death scene, always worth a rewatchhttps://youtu.be/nIDlTGd7Y9UFor the record, I think Furiosa will be around for a good long while yet, but then what do I know?Here’s a nice review paper about telomeres and human disease if you’re interestedhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190725/#!po=17.5862





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilverDagger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/gifts), [Splinter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splinter/gifts).



**Los** **Angeles** , **2018**. A global financial crisis drags on. The super-rich have migrated to a luxurious gated community off-planet, whilst economic migrants eke out a living on the Off-World colonies.  

The introduction of fully biological replicants had been greeted with fascination and awe back in ’96, when the economy was booming and optimism was the order of the day.

But then came the Millennium Data Crash. After the loss of so many birth registry and replicant inception records on 31st December 1999, the question of replicant vs born human identity grew from a satirical joke into paranoia. Those without documents feared for their legal status. Migrants and those with neurodivergent traits were particularly vulnerable; “skinjob” became a playground taunt.

Uncertainty sowed the seeds of distrust and bitterness that would flourish with the recession.

After decades of research, the Voigt-Kampf empathy test now distinguishes replicant from born with 75% accuracy, but public confidence continues to be low.

Ten years on, the true causes of the financial crisis are forgotten and replicants are a universal scapegoat.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Max knows he’s a replicant. He doesn’t know HOW he knows (no one is entirely certain about that anymore), but he knows it nonetheless. He hugs the knowledge close when he wakes in the night and remembers his family. They’re not real memories, just implanted. He’s glad of it. He doesn’t have to mourn people who probably never existed, at least not to him.

He doesn’t remember what he did before he ran. Sometimes he thinks he might’ve been a Blade Runner himself. Doesn’t matter. What does anything matter when you can’t trust your memories? Just keep moving, keep out of trouble, one step ahead. Because they’d catch him one day. Bring him in. Retire him. The idea should be a relief, but he couldn’t resign himself to it.

Max knew his time was up when he locked gazes with the metal-arm cop. He never, ever, looked anyone in the eye. It would be his undoing, he knew. And now she was following him. How well could he run? Not well enough.

The last words he heard, through the white pain in his knee and the burning lungs and the grey blobs that crowded his vision -

“ - you’re not - under arrest - goddammit” the breathless voice was exasperated, snapping cuffs on his wrists.

*

He jolted awake, which was a bad move. It hurt. A lot. Knee. Restraints. What had they put on his face? Some kind of muzzle? Just breathe. Stay calm. Not easy. A face swam into focus. Woman. He shrank his head back as far as he could and glared warily.

She held up an LAPD badge. “Max Rockatansky?”

He shook his head immediately.

“YOU’RE NOT UNDER ARREST” she repeated, slowly and loudly.

???

Could’ve fooled him.

“Just need to ask you a few questions.”

She held up an ID screen. His face. His name? He had no name.

She looked at it, at him, raised an eyebrow. “This you?”

He shook his head stubbornly.

“Fine.” She reached into her jacket, muttering “ - muzzled you for a reason.”

She was quick. Before he’d realised what she was intended, before he could squeeze his eyes tight shut, she’d grabbed the muzzle and scanned him.

Fuck.

She glanced at the screen, and turned it toward him with a look of weary triumph. Match.

“I don’t care why you ran. I don’t want to know. Okay - take it easy - I’m gonna - ”

She moved round behind him.

“I’m gonna take this muzzle off, so you can speak. Don’t even think about biting. Remember, you’re still chained to this wall.”

Reminded of his situation, he growled and wrenched at the offending chains.

“Hey! Settle down or I’ll leave you here!” she raised her voice impatiently. “No one comes down here. No one knows we’re here.”

But still, she unlatched the muzzle, loosened it enough to allow him to shake it off.

“What - you want?” he sighed, once he was free to speak. Tired now. To tired to fight. Stay calm. Give her what she wants and she might let him go.

“Do you know this man?”

She held out the device again. Max looked at it and flinched, turned his head away. Her next words were spoken more softly.

“Almost thirty years ago, he was responsible for the death of a woman and child.”

“Ran them down - ”

The words spoke themselves, his face turned away from her.

“Your wife and son - ”

“NO” he replied, more sharply than he’d intended.

She blinked.

“You’re Max Rockatansky.” A statement, not a question.

“No.”

“Your retinal scan says otherwise” she persisted, beginning to sound less certain.

“They’re not my memories.”

Her questioning frown turned to stone. She got to her feet, walked rigidly into the shadows. Took a deep breath and slammed her metal arm into the wall. “Fuck!” she yelled, to no one in particular.

He watched her warily as she returned. Hoped she’d taken out her anger on the plumbing. The black-smeared eyes gleamed in the light of the single bulb. They showed resignation. He should’ve been afraid. This was what he’d been running from all this time.

“Well, Not-Max-Rockatansky - ” she said, slowly. He tore his eyes away from her shit-scary metal arm with difficulty and looked her in the eye. If she was going to be what kills him, he wasn’t going to flinch, he told himself. He might even be grateful.

“ - I suppose I’d better untie you” she said. “Since you’re no use to me whatsoever. I think you know not to try anything.”

He ducked his head in surprise, grunted acquiescence, acknowledgement. He wasn’t going to try anything.

She was really just - letting him go?

“ - you’re not a Runner?” he found himself asking, his surprise and curiosity overruling whatever survival instincts he had left.

“Why, what have you done?” she looked at him wryly. “If eating out of dumpsters was a crime, I’d be busy. But, no, not anymore I’m not.”

She lapsed into silence as she unlocked his cuffs, then asked, musingly, almost speaking to herself, “Why DID you run, Not-Max?”

He twitched and glared into the shadows, as her words echoed in voices that weren’t hers at all. Echoes, were they real or just - ? He didn’t know anymore. A shudder of panic ran through him - he was bound and vulnerable and they were coming for him -

\- he wrenched hard at his restraints.

His cuffs, now unlocked, flew free of the pipes.

She - watching him curiously - sat back and said quietly, soothingly - “It’s okay. Relax. It’s okay.”

He tested the movement in his arms, found himself free, took a calming breath.

“I - I keep seeing people. Following.”

YES, he knew how crazy that sounded. He didn’t need to be reminded, thankyou.

But if her first thought was Can-D, as well it might have been, she kept it to herself.

“Not me, anyway,” she shook her head. “Never saw you before today.”

“No. Others. Men.”

He froze. Shit. THIS wasn’t in his head. They were here, he could hear them.

She looked sceptical. Probably even more convinced that his head was completely fried. But then he saw her tilt her head and tense.

“In here!” a voice had echoed, far off but close, amplified by the pipes. “He’s been seen here.”

They exchanged a glance. Evidently convinced, she reached out and hurriedly removed the cuffs from where they hung on his wrists.

“I’ll head them off. Go, get out of here. Can you run?”

He saw her look doubtfully at his leg as she hurried off. It’d been only too obvious what his weak point was - it’d crumpled when she tackled him. He’d be limping for a day or two, but that wasn’t the reason he fumbled into the shadows for what he knew he’d find there. He’d had enough of this.

“Not planning on running” he growled, feeling the satisfying weight of the lead pipe in his hands.


	2. Chapter 2

Furiosa marched purposefully towards the two figures at the warehouse door. “What the fuck?” she hissed. “You pricks are blowing my cover!”

They stared for a moment. One jostled the other’s shoulder suddenly. “That’s her! She stole the Immortan’s stuff!”

Before his partner had time to respond, Furiosa lowered her shoulders and sprinted forward, barrelling into them both. The second regained his feet while his colleague appeared to be getting the upper hand.

“Alive, yeah? Just bring her in!”

He turned and darted into the inner doorway, half-pausing only to add “I’ll shred the witness and next stop Valhalla!”

The first grinned and looked back down at his feebly struggling prisoner. Worryingly, she grinned back.

“Not gonna be that easy, War Boy!”

*

With a groan, she rolled her strained shoulder - that would hurt tomorrow - then wiped her prosthetic hand on her pant leg.

Furiosa shook her head at the bloodied figure at her feet, but had no time to decide between triumph or regret -

\- she turned sharply at the sound of shuffling feet in the deepening shadows.

She relaxed as a familiar voice said “Okay?”

“Mm. You?” she asked in return, although he was standing far too straight for that blood to be his own.

Furiosa couldn’t decide if she was relieved he’d run from her, or sorry. She suspected that, leg or no leg, he could be a decent match for her in a fight. That would make a nice change.

“We should go” she added, satisfied that the grunt he offered was an affirmative. “There’ll be more of them on the way.”

Suddenly a voice called her name from the street.

*

“Get in!” Angharad screamed from the cab of garbage truck.

Furiosa yelled “Wait a minute!” and disappeared back into the darkness of the alleyway.

“What’s she doing? Going back?”

She re-emerged into the halo of streetlight with a bloodstained man who dragged his leg as he ran. They opened the rear hatch of the truck and she leapt in, and hauled the man in after her just as the wheels began to move.

“Who’s the smeg?” Dag glared at the newcomer and sniffed. “He stinks.”

Cheedo, in her ambiguous position of hiding behind Dag while bracing to defend her against attack if necessary, whispered in her ear, “It IS a garbage truck - ”

“Isn’t that the hobo guy you spotted? The one you ran after?” Angharad turned in the passenger  seat, her tone somewhere between accusation and interest.

“Yeah” Toast seconded. “What happened to ‘stick with the plan’?”

But Furiosa ignored their questions. She had business to attend to. Business that affected all of them. Two hours ago, they were just running. Now they had a weapon. A witness. 

*

She sat crosslegged on the floor, holding the infopanel in her hand. The picture of Jessie and Sprog was half-visible on the screen. Max couldn’t seem to take his eyes off it.

“Okay, you’re a replicant, I get it. But there’s nothing to say that implanted memories aren’t copies, from someone else.”

She held the panel out towards him. “This woman, this child - that you remember - they lived, and someone lost them.”

“Okay”

“And, for whatever reason, your retinal scan says you are that someone. So - ”

“OKAY. I’ll do it. Whatever it is.”

“Come forward. Make a statement. If you can give - ” she sighed wearily, “eyewitness testimony of what he did, we - I’ve got enough evidence. It’ll be lethal injection. Or prison. Or he’ll be fired.”

Her certainty was fading away with every word. What’d seemed like the answer to their prayers now seemed like a dumb impulsive fuckup. Why hadn’t she just stuck with the plan?

“But people get murdered every day” Toast cut in. “Why would this be such a big deal?”

“Because they were human.” Angharad called out over her shoulder. “Before replicants existed. Life was important then. You can’t kill people if there’s no doubt that they were born.”

The other girls looked quizzically at each other, trying to wrap their heads around this new - or rather old - logic.

“And no-one’s above the law” Angharad added, determinedly.

Furiosa caught Max’s eye. He looked as sceptical as she felt. But thank god for Angharad and her idealism. It restored some hope, some confidence in her decision. It DID make sense. Of course it did. It had to - 

She rubbed her eyes tiredly.

“All I know is, a lawyer got very excited when I showed her. I should send her a message - ” she added, turning her attention back to her infopanel.

“In the meantime, just fang it!” she called forward through the hatch to Capable.


	3. Chapter 3

“He doesn’t look old enough. He should be about fifty” Toast pointed out, after some silent calculations on Furiosa’s infopad.

“Might have good genes” Capable demurred.

“He probably IS a skinjob” Dag mumbled, biting her nails.

“Don’t say skinjob. We’re all people.” Angharad reminded her.

“Besides, how do we know we’re not?” Capable added. “Were WE really born?”

“That’s just an urban legend” Toast scoffed. “Have you ever actually MET a replicant who thought they’d been born?”

“Well - my neighbour’s friend knew a guy who - ” Capable began, but got cut off by Toast’s triumphant “No, didn’t think so.”

“Wouldn’t it be horrible though - ? If all your memories were fake?” she mused, undaunted.

“But, look, didn’t we all get tested? I did, anyway.” Cheedo looked confused.

“Yeah, but the test is mediocre. Sixty percent accuracy. Barely better than a guess.” Toast sighed. “That’s Furiosa’s point.”

*

Max woke with a jolt. It wasn’t the nightmares, more the chorus of shrieks and yells from the back of the truck. Before he’d got a grip on his wrench, she - Furiosa - was choking, grappling with a chain round her neck while trying to keep control of vehicle.

Max lunged for the figure whose head and arms just as suddenly disappeared backwards through the hatch. There was a muffled cry of “Filth! You traitored him!”

“Take the wheel!” she wheezed, released, before scrambling through the hole after her attacker. He did. It looked like things were under control, from the shouts of female rage.

“No! Furiosa, you promised!” That was the pregnant one’s voice. The idealistic one. “No unnecessary killing, remember?”

“He tried to kill ME!” was Furiosa’s outraged reply. Living up to her name, Max thought. “He’s one of Joe’s Boys!”

“He’s just a kid at the end of his lifespan!”

“No! I’m awaited in Valhalla!” the attacker protested. That voice - he knew it from somewhere -

“You’ll still be a slave in Valhalla!”

“Chuck him out!” Furiosa yelled.

“It’s over! You can’t defy him!” A creak and the rush of wind as the rear door opened -

“Just watch us!”

“By his hand we’ll be lifted up!” the attacker’s voice quavering, whether from reverence or from being manhandled. Or womanhandled, more like.

“Offworld’s no different to here!”

\- and slammed shut again.


	4. Chapter 4

“They’ll shelter us. For a while anyway. I made a deal.”

Furiosa frowned as she glanced in the rear view mirror. So much for hope. It had been going too well to last. She turned to Max in the passenger seat. “You might have to drive.”

She accelerated, weaving through the suburban traffic as best she could, her heart sinking within her. She’d fitted out this rig for stealth, not speed, and certainly not manoeuvrability. A circuitous route towards the riverside, a clear rear-view, breathe again.

“Hey. What’s your name? What do I call you, if not Max? Do you have a name?” He shook his head. “Fine. When I yell ‘Witness’ - you drive away as fast as you can.”

Furiosa pulled into a disused railway yard and got out, hands raised high. She breathed out a little. Okay, now for it.

“It’s all here! Three hundred stamped and witnessed certificates, just like you asked! I’ll stow the truck and you take us in!”

They were difficult to spot, but that was whole point. That’s why she’d come to the Free Runners for help.

One voice shouted angrily from the top of a signal tower, the geometric patterns making his face strangely difficult to distinguish by eye. A scanner would have a tougher job. The roofs were their domain, screened from aerial view and undetected by human or machine. Furiosa had hoped they too would be safe there, but that chance was waning by the second.

“You said ‘A few Boys in pursuit. Maybe.’ We’ve seen a whole convoy!”

Still chasing, why can’t she shake them off?

Their pursuers have abandoned stealth by now, their shouts and revs plain to hear. The misty headlamps getting brighter, spray like a halo.

“Yeah, well, I got unlucky,” she muttered under her breath as she backed away. This was not going well. They were coming, they were almost here.

“Blow the viaduct!” the lookout bellowed.

“Witness!” she yelled, and the engine roared into life. Furiosa dodged between the rolling wheels and found a row of arms waiting at the back to pull her onboard. The doors slammed shut just as the debris from the explosion rained off the roof of the truck like hail. 


	5. Chapter 5

Concrete dust is rapidly washed from the air into grey puddles. The few remaining lights strobe in overlapping circles on the ground. Moore’s Boys mill about noisily, while his mountain of a son attempts to flame the soaking air in his excitement. The fumes from the spluttering weapon are choking those nearby.

“Immortan! Immortan Joe! I got a War Boy! Says he was on the garbage truck. You! Climb aboard!”

One of Moore’s personal bodyguard strides up holding a young man by the elbow, while another follows, waving something in the air.

“Hey. Hey! I got his boot! I got the Blood Bag’s boot! Take me! I got his boot!”

“Rictus! The rain! No more flames!”

“Immortan. If I get on the truck, there’s a way inside.”

“What is your name?”

“It’s Nux. I’ll pike her in the spine. Keep her breathing” he offered eagerly.

“No. Put a bullet in her skull. Stop the truck, return my treasures to me - and I, myself, will carry you Offworld - to the Gates - of Valhalla.”

“Am I awaited?” the Boy’s eyes were wide with rapture.

“You will be a Real Boy - Witnessed by the Immortan.”

And then it happens - 

”Ugh. Mediocre.”

In his disgust, Joe Moore jabs at the ‘call’ button.

*

“Splendid! Splendid!” The hoarse voice shouts from somewhere around the floor, making them yelp in terror. Was he in here, somehow, with them?

“It’s the infopanel!”

“Is that how he knows where we are?”

“Is he tracking us?”

“That’s my child! My property!”

Angharad screamed in her rage, grabbed it out of Toast’s hands and wrenched open the back door. Just at that moment, Furiosa called ‘look out!’ and Max swerved to avoid shredding a front tyre on some War Boy-flung caltrops in the road.

*

Where are you? Help us. Where are you, Max? Stop running. You let us die! You could’ve helped us! You could’ve helped so many people, Max - 

“Witness - ”

He jolted awake, white walls, surgical masks, needles, red lines, a man in goggles - all fading out, replaced by a dark cab, a concerned face looking sidelong at him. Sounds of sobbing from the back.

“It’s okay. Sleep.”

It’s not okay though. They’d almost lost the dark haired one too, Cheeto? The kid. She looked like a kid, anyway. Seems she’d made to fling herself out of the truck when they slowed to take a corner, they’d just grabbed her in time. Talked her out of going back.

Back where? To the man who was chasing them. Heavy-looking old guy with white hair. Max didn’t know his face. And then he did. That was him, but he’d got old. What right did HE have to grow old? How old would THEY be now? That woman and child he knew and loved as if they were his.

Max knew then that this wasn’t going to end in a courtroom. It had gone beyond that. Max knew he wouldn’t be done til he saw that man dead. By the look on her face, this Furiosa was of the same mind. He didn’t know her story, but she’d just seen her friend die. And he was gunning for them too, can’t forget that. With Angharad had gone the infopanel. It seemed like they might have lost them, but they could hardly rule out other tracking devices.

“Least they don’t have Spinners” Max found himself speaking out loud.

Furiosa smiled bitterly. “Oh they’ll have Spinners. But they won’t be getting off the ground any time soon.” 


	6. Chapter 6

“So - where now?”

“There’s a place I remember. Out of the city, eastwards. I think it was Home, once.”

Catching his eye, she added, shortly. “I was brought here as a child.”

She drove on. It would be a long night, but she knew the way.

Stupid, stupid. Her infopad had been compromising them all. And she’d messaged Giddy. He would have her by now. No, don’t think about that. Tears were threatening, this was not the time. Don’t think at all. Just keep moving.

“Take the wheel. Someone should stay down the back. Need to search the truck. Keep watch. They could still be tracking us.”

“I’ll go” Capable offered, rising.

“No. I want you to stay together.”

“I can do it.”

*

Capable didn’t use that voice often, but she got her way when she did. With most people anyway, not all.

She checked the dark corners of the empty container, glad that it had been hosed clean. She’d never been in a garbage container before yesterday but she reckoned they were normally pretty unpleasant to poke around in. There was only the crusher mechanism left.

Peering in cautiously, she froze. Him, one of Joe’s Boys. They’d thrown him out, but here he was, curled up, sobbing. He didn’t look about to attack.

“What are you doing here?”

“He saw it. He saw it all. My own Blood Bag driving the truck that killed her.”

The Boy banged his head against the metal floor.

“Stop doing that.” She tried to calm him, shush him like a child, but he carried on. “Stop.”

“Three times I had a chance for Valhalla. I was awaited, they were calling my name. I should be full-life on the Offworld. A Real Boy.”

“You look like a Real Boy to me.”

“Not for long. Only half a year left. Then it’s all over. I’ve had all my chances. Gonna be recycled - nothing but garbage.”

*

Furiosa knocked on the metal wall behind her head. “What’s going on back there?”

Toast stuck her head through the hatch. “Capable’s adopted a War Boy. She says he’s tame.”

“You’ve got your weapons, use them if you have to.”

“S’alright?” the Witness asked, muzzily. He’d had almost an hour’s sound sleep after all those nightmares. She wouldn’t sleep yet though. Not til they were safe out of the city limits. And she knew a short cut.

“Our passenger is still with us.”

She nodded backwards. The Witness tensed, listening to the voices in the back. Warily, he leaned round and looked through the hatch.

“Blood Bag!” The War Boy cried, like he was meeting a long-lost friend. “How’d you get out?”

The Witness shrank back into his seat. He did not look happy to see him. Blood Bag? Had he been one of R&D’s research subjects?

But no time to chat, this short cut was rapidly turning into a fucking quagmire.

No going back, though. Keep moving or they’d sink. No, no, no - the wheels span and they were not moving.

“Right, everybody out! We’re gonna have to push this thing!”

The girls jumped out the back, deliberately aiming for the puddles like kids who’d never been outdoors. Which was largely true.

“Whoa, it’s got my boot.”

“What is this place?”

“It’s creepy.”

Furiosa couldn’t argue with that. It wasn’t like haunted house or serial killer creepy. More like the low-level horror of thwarted hopes and crushed dreams. It made you feel deeply uncertain of anything you ever put your faith in.

It was going to be a new town. Now it was row on row of half-built houses, hollow shells. It felt lifeless. Someday people would be desperate enough to find a home here, but it hadn’t happened yet. The only things taking up residence were the weeds in the cracks.

She’d expected to see this. It was just another hangover of the last decade. She hadn’t expected it to be so fucking muddy.

“There’s high ground - just beyond that thing.”

“He means the tree.”

“Yeah. Tree!”

“Say, anyone notice that bright light? Encroaching gunfire?”

“Okay, don’t panic. But we gotta get this thing moving.”

“I’m gonna use the winch, put it round that tree thing.”

“Where’s the Witness gone?” Toast asked, with a hint of disgust in her voice. “Fucked off when things get tough, just like a man.”

Furiosa felt a pang of disappointment and, when she checked the cab for the spare shotgun, she didn’t know what to think. Had he run again? Was it losing Angharad? He seemed - not well equipped to deal with that sort of thing. Or, had he gone to - help?

As the girls pushed and Furiosa wrestled the gears, the Boy managed to get the winch hook round the sole tree left standing in this forsaken place. In her desperation, she found her mind wandering - wondering if some construction workers were superstitious and didn’t want to provoke the faeries. And then a flash of anger. The Boy didn’t know what a tree was. Fuck Moore. She would have to end him. She wouldn’t be able to rest otherwise.

There were some flashes in the fog, followed by the reports of a gun. Furiosa’s heart was already in her mouth by the time she saw a figure trudging toward them. She was slowly reaching for her handgun when she heard a voice she recognised. For all she’d heard of it, which was very little. Not chatty, this one.

“S’alright” he waved a hand and dropped a bag. It sounded heavy.

“Spares” he added, before darting over to where the Boy was struggling. Some words were exchanged, she saw the Boy nod at him, and jog through the mud to take a hand with the pushing. And then they were free. 


	7. Chapter 7

The truck sat idling by the remains of a chain link fence, as sobs and wails cut through the mist.

”Help me - please - ”

Max had shaken his head the moment they saw her.

The young woman was dressed in the remains of expensive-looking clothes, blood smeared on her face and body. She looked exactly like someone who’d been viciously attacked, but had lived to tell the tale - and to give a profitable reward to anyone who could take her home to her rich and grateful family.

“Ohhh no. That’s bait.”

The girls looked appalled at the his callousness, then exchanged uncertain glances.

“Stay in the truck.”

Furiosa reached into her jacket and climbed out. She advanced slowly on the twisted metal structure and its weeping prisoner. She held her hands high, empty but for a small white square.

“I am one of the Vuvalini!” she cried out. “My mother was Mary Jabassa! Here, I have - I have her picture!”

The bait scrambled down and ran towards her barefoot, paused, stared. Bikes began to swarm like roaring bees.

“Here.” Furiosa thrust the Polaroid toward her. “My mother. Mary Jabassa. I’m - Furiosa” she added, barely above a hoarse whisper.

The bait glanced at the picture and handed it to the closest biker.

“Mary Jabassa - I knew her - yes - ” the older woman conferred with her passenger, looked at Furiosa. “But, a daughter - ?”

Others came close, peered at the crumpled Polaroid. “Looks a bit like her. Something in the eyes. But still - ”

The bait turned to the group, spoke in a voice that would brook no argument. “This is our Furiosa.”

*

Max’s eyes stung as he watched this exchange from the cab. He hoped he’d been the only one to notice the fleeting look of confusion and doubt on the bait woman’s face.

Furiosa’s expression of naked hope had changed, sure, set into that default expression of fixed resignation. She didn’t look like someone who’d had her whole identity ripped away in a moment. Max hoped he was just being paranoid. He’d given up hope, on the grounds that it didn’t agree with him, but she seemed to run on it.

The girls were climbing out, heading for the group. These women looked welcoming enough - to them at least.

But Max hung back and the Boy, Nux, seemed reluctant to follow even his new best friend.

“The men, who are they?” one of the older women asked, in a voice loud enough to be heard from the truck. He heard the reply clearly enough. “They’re reliable. They helped us get here.”

He shuddered a little at this. Reliable? Christ, he didn’t even know what he WAS. But - didn’t he? Was he doubting even that one comfortably numbing fact now?

*

“Stay right where you are, Little Joe.” Dag looked round at the piles of trash around them. “Kinda lost its novelty out here.”

“You havin’ a baby?”

“Asshole Junior. Gonna be so ugly.”

“At least it’ll be born. We’ll witness it.” The oldest of the bike women rummaged in her bag and went on, “Y’know, I read somewhere that they’ve made replicants who can have babies. You’re not one of them are ya?” she asked with a wink.

“Science fiction, Keep.” Furiosa cut in, from the truck where she was busy reattaching some panelling. “It’s not real, remember?”

The bike women exchanged glances, and the bait woman smiled. Maybe this was their Furiosa. Maybe not. It didn’t matter. Looked like she knew them, anyway.

“Good idea though. It’d make sense. Save the lazy sonsabitches the trouble of making us, if we can do it ourselves. Probably do a better job too.” Dag grinned at Keep, if that was her name.

“Stop it, Dag.” Capable gave her a half-amused warning look. “You’ll give them the wrong idea about us.”

“The witness there - ” Dag nodded over towards Max, who was busy cleaning the mud from one bare foot and trying to look like he wasn’t listening. “He might be a hobo, but HE’S got the right idea. Things don’t get to you if you’ve been made. Nothing’s really real. Four years of all this and you’re done. Recycled. Trouble over. She paused in thought. “Hmm. Souls - ” and she sat silently, lost in her private musings til dinner.

As they prepared food, the biker women quizzed the new arrivals. “What’s the deal here? You girls look kinda edgy. You running?”

“Yep. Asshole Senior’s upset the goods have run off. And he probably knows Mister Reliable over there can pin him on a murder charge.”

“And he killed Furiosa’s friend.” Capable added.

“What? Who? I didn’t know this.” Toast asked.

“That’s what brought her back. It happened just before we ran. Angharad told me.”

“I thought Angharad had reprogrammed her. Like you did with your boyfriend there.”

“Shut up, it doesn’t work like that. He’s not a robot.”

“Who was her friend?” one of the women asked.

“Her mentor. She’d lived with him since she started working for Tyrell. She doesn’t talk about it much though.”

They all looked over at where Furiosa was sitting in conversation with the bait woman. Valkyrie, her name was.

“We don’t really know much about her.” Capable looked apologetic.

“Ah well, Val works wonders.”

And indeed, Furiosa seemed more relaxed. She was talking, occasionally wiping her eyes, there were even some smiles. 


	8. Chapter 8

“So, how have you been? What have you been doing all these years?”

Furiosa took a deep breath. She didn’t really want to have to tell her life story, not right now, with the Witness over there messing with his boot and the girls probably within earshot too.

But this Val was too easy to tell things to, she WANTED to tell. Ace was still a raw wound and Angharad -

\- Furiosa had a nauseous feeling that her confidences were a curse, that whoever she unburdened herself to would die.

But that was stupid. Besides, they all should know what they were dealing with.

“There’s this man, we’ve got to - ” she gritted her teeth “ - end him. He’s - Head of Resources at Tyrell. But he’s a fucking psychopath. He’s killed people, and he’s after us.” Furiosa’s words were stumbling over each other in their haste to get out.

“Okay - ” Val narrowed her eyes and looked sideways.

“Say the word and we’ll keep driving.” Furiosa wondered why she said that. They needed these people. She shouldn’t be talking them out of helping her.

Val looked back at Furiosa and sat up straight. There was a steely look in her eye, and a mirthless smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “He’ll have to come through us first.”

The look on Val’s face certainly inspired confidence. Finally, had they reached their destination? She sagged with relief but murmured, “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“Don’t be afraid.” Val rested her forehead against Furiosa’s for a moment. “We take care of our own.”

*

“I was in a kind of school - for kids with no family. Mum was gone by then, I must’ve been very young when she died -

We had lots of scrap metal, we would rebuild whatever we could. There were school hours too, but I liked the mechanical work. It was fine. Useful, really. Built this - ”

She held up her left arm, wiggled the fingers of her prosthetic.

Val’s brow furrowed with concern, and Furiosa went on without a pause. She wanted to get to the point, but it all seemed to come to her through a fog. When had she slept last?

“Then, when I was nearly sixteen, Tyrell came looking for interns. Not himself, of course, his Procurement people. Moore was Head of Procurement back then, so it wasn’t long before I got to meet him. The school were more than happy - I’d be leaving in a few months - this way they’d get a tidy fee from Tyrell.”

“I was put in Organic Recycling - which is exactly what it sounds like. So, I pushed for promotion to Security. Got that after about three years. This was just after the crash, LAPD had just been privatised, so that’s how I got my badge.”

“I’d been placed with a mentor, back when I started” Furiosa’s eyes stung as she spoke “He was a genetic engineer. And he kept a kind of hostel for new interns. Just a few rooms, there were never that many of us at a time. I was the only one staying there when he died.”

She cleared her throat. “Was killed.” She was surprised at how numb she felt in the telling. Val put a hand on hers, tipped her head enquiringly.

Furiosa went on. “He was my friend, and I’m pretty sure I got him killed.”

Now she felt arms around her, she rested her head on the woman’s shoulder, and squeezed her eyes shut. Just for a moment though. She wasn’t done.

“Long story short - ” she gripped Val’s arm “we’re running from a man with an private army of replicants, who keeps women locked up, who kills people who get in his way. And, I might be going crazy here, but - ” she looked up at her new friend “ - think he’s the one who killed my mother.”

“This Moore guy?”

Furiosa nodded. She was so tired. “Right.”

Val put her hand on Furiosa’s shoulder. “We’re gonna fix this, okay? But first you need to sleep. You look like you’re about to to drop.”

She gave her a pull up and look her into a freight container that looked much less comfortable outside than it did in.

“Magda’s made you up beds in here. It’s kinda rough but - ” she waved a hand around “ - you see how it is. Probably changed some from what you remember.”

“Yeah” Furiosa laughed. She didn’t know what she was saying anymore.

Sleep.


	9. Chapter 9

Val let out a long breath as she joined Keep under the awning.

“Some crazy shit” Keep agreed.

“What we gonna do?”

“Stand and fight. What else CAN we do?”

“This Moore guy sounds like the worst.”

“Fixated on power and pussy.” Keep nodded sagely.

“Hm?”

“The girls tell me he’s got this weird thing about childbirth, and making an heir to prove he’s human. Or some shit. No-one’s valid unless they’ve passed ‘the sacred portal’”

“Oh no - ” Val groaned. “Not those girls?”

“And Furiosa, maybe.” Keep tightened her lips, resigned to the worst.

“I hope not. She didn’t mention it - ” Val recollected the conversation. “Mainly talked about how much of a murdering bastard he is. She thinks he killed Mary.”

Keep seized her shotgun. “There you go then. We look after our own”

Raising her voice, “Y’hear that girls? We look after our own. And that goes for you too, Silent Bob!”

She pointed at the man who now sat by the door of the container where Furiosa slept. Good line of sight to the road there, she noted. Reliable seemed fair. “Let’s get to work!”

“Where’s Furi?” the red-haired one asked.

“Sleeping, I hope.”

“Good. She’s been driving us two days straight. Trying to find somewhere safe.”

“This is as good a place as any.”

*

By the morning, they were ready. Any uninvited guests would meet with a cool welcome.

*

It wasn’t one of those standard dreams where you’re running through quicksand and wake just before you’re caught. Not anymore. It had started out like that. But it played every night, with some new detail each time. Like a story taking shape. Or a memory.

She only had a sketchy idea of how her mother had been attacked. That kind of crime didn’t  exactly make the news. 

But Furiosa was starting to think that SHE’D been there when it’d happened. Had she seen it all? Was this a kid’s confused memory bubbling up after Ace’s death?

Or maybe it’s just those years of law enforcement finally catching up with her. Stress? Trauma? No shortage of either.

The thing was, she was never just watching it, in her dream. It was HER - HER running, being chased. The blend of panic and rage at being caught.

The details made more sense than a dream should, too. It played out pretty much like something out of a self-defence manual. More or less what she herself would do if grabbed from behind. Fling head back to break a nose, use your elbows, knee if you can. And this time round - bite if you’re think you’re losing the fight.

She HAD been losing. Oh, how her teeth had met in muscle and sinew, gruesome but satisfying - a crack, that’s her skull, for sure - a flash of light that no one but her saw. Shouts from far away. And then she was someone else entirely, under the glare of fluorescent lights.

She woke, dazed, sickened, her white-knuckled grip on his wrist, whose wrist?

\- it was only the Witness, looking at her, wide-eyed but unharmed.

She let go, good thing she’d remembered to take off her prosthetic, she thought, as the adrenaline subsided.

“Hey. Hey. S’alright” his voice coming to her from far away. “You were dreaming.”

Her stomach was churning, there was a sour taste in her mouth, metallic. “Did I bite you? I bit you - ” she asked, feeling only half-awake still.

Despite his shake of the head, she reached for his collar, pulled it aside, the absence of a gory wound succeeding in banishing the nightmare better than a mere denial would have done.

Glancing around the dim space, she saw the girls and young Nux curled up, fast asleep. She could’ve sworn she’d been raising hell, but no.

“You didn’t bite me.”

“Good” she breathed, heart no longer going like a trip hammer. “Good.”

“Sleep?”

“Hmm” she nodded, though sceptical.

She really needed it. But Furiosa’s nerves were in shreds, lying down to sleep wasn’t going to help. So she sat up fully, leaning her back against the mercifully angled metal wall and hugged her knees.

“Got any water?” she asked, in hopes of getting that nauseating taste out of her mouth, whether acid reflux or the lingering memory of blood.

He rummaged in his bag and handed her a bottle.

“Thanks” she gasped, handing it back as he settled down about an arms length away from her.

“Mind if I move over a bit?”

The Witness nodded and folded his arms. “Sure.”

Furiosa heard his little grunt of surprise as she shuffled sideways and leaned her shoulder against his. Then it occurred to her, he probably thought she’d meant move AWAY.

“Is this okay?” she asked. He said nothing, but tilted his head to the side a little, just enough for her to rest hers against it if she wanted to.

She did, and sighed. It was unspeakably comforting to know someone else was awake, that you’re not alone in the night. She huffed a little at the image of her going to the girls, waking them with ‘I had a nightmare’. 


	10. Chapter 10

“How are they?” Keep whispered, as Val closed the door carefully. 

“Out like a light. Must’ve been a long day.”

She thought of the tangle of sleepers. The various murmurs and twitches. The boy looked like he might be running a fever. She made a mental note to ask what they had in stores for that sort of thing. The little one, Toast, was less of a kicker than Val had expected, but she snored like someone twice her size.

The man with no name was nodding like someone who was fighting sleep and losing. And Furiosa was propped up against him, knees falling over his legs slightly, fast asleep.

Poor Furiosa. Val wanted to stay and watch too, but she couldn’t. It was more than her conscience could take. She’d be better off doing something practical.

“What you think of Silent Bob there? Him that says he’s a replicant. I’m not sure, myself, either way.”

“What does it matter? They’re all people.”

Keep must’ve picked up on some particular tone in Val’s voice, she said “Don’t go torturing yourself, girl. You’ve done more than enough long ago. Made amends, I mean.”

That she’d felt the need to tag on that explanation spoke volumes, Val thought, face burning with old shame.

“Not enough. How could it be? All those people. Because of me.” She wouldn’t cry. It was an indulgence she didn’t deserve.

Keep took a deep breath. They’d had this conversation many times before, Val knew, yet here she was asking for reassurance. Pathetic, really.

“They weren’t alive yet. Not awake, anyway. They wouldn’t have felt anything.”

“How can I know that?” Val’s voice was a whisper.

Her imagination had supplied plenty of screams. Very obligingly. She was just a dumb kid, she told herself. Among so many others. They had Good Intentions. But she’d been so very angry, too much so; and the others followed where she led, eventually. They just wanted to kick back.

And Tyrell had been such an obvious target, what with their shiny offices and their shiny suits and their cheap labour force that was stealing her generation’s future.

Yeah right. It was an easy target, that was all.

They’d downloaded floorplans and researched recipes, they covered their faces and gone out that night. Afterwards, assembled at Val’s bedsit, they sat eagerly, waiting the news to break.

‘Angry students make evil corporation pay. Shiny offices destroyed by righteous youth. Financial records destroyed in cleansing blaze.’ But that wasn’t the image Val had carried with her throughout her twenties.

A momentary alarm at hearing the phrase ‘laboratory destroyed in arson attack’. Laboratory? No, it was an administration block - adjacent to the CEO’s office - ? Images of pale-faced nocturnal scientists, white coats ablaze, flashed in her mind’s eye. But she’d breathed again; according to the reporter, there had been ‘zero casualties’.

They had nervously cheered and drunk to the reports of ‘structural damage’, ‘loss of assets’ and ‘shockwaves already being felt on Wall Street’.

They gave the finger derisively to Tyrell’s PR guru who assured shareholders that this night’s events did in no way affect the company’s highly lucrative expansion plans. They saw through the corporate bullshit.

No, the reason Val had promptly thrown up in the tiny bathroom was thanks to the enterprising cameraman who had snuck in and captured certain images before being firmly but politely removed.

She’d stared transfixed at the screen, despite the anchorwoman’s warning of ‘images the viewer may find distressing’. What she saw was image after image of suited and hooded decontamination workers carrying from the smoking ruin what she knew to be human bodies in biohazard bags.

So. Yeah. Val certainly needed to make amends.

And that included protecting these people from whoever was trying to harm them.

From what the girls had told her, this Moore asshole had been making it his life’s work to manipulate replicants. Promising them the impossible, making them his puppets. Fuck that.

It didn’t matter to her what any one of them was or wasn’t. They all deserved to be as safe and happy as anyone else. Furiosa was Mary Jabassa’s daughter. Val had no reason to think otherwise. She’d come home.

Val didn’t know anything much about this man they called Witness, but he seemed to be an alright guy. Furiosa trusted him, clearly. Val’s heart gave a pang and mouth twitched a little at the image of them asleep. She’d do her best for them both.

And the young ones, that went without saying. The Mothers had aggressively adopted them all, even the boy. They’d be alright.

“Attagirl.” Keep tweaked her cheek fondly. “Good to see that smile again.”


	11. Chapter 11

It’s uncomfortable, being talked about. Especially when your conscience is giving you hell. He wasn’t happy to see the kid again, which made him even more guilty.

But he’d HAD to get out of there. It became very obvious very quickly that it was not a healthy place for him to be.

What had they done with half his stuff, anyway? His car? He couldn’t even find his other boot when he skipped out. At least he’d gotten a haircut and a shave out of it, though it’d been a heartstopping moment when they started buzzing at him like that.

The research program was technically voluntary but, when the alternative is a vagrancy charge, it’s questionable. What were they even planning to do with him? He’d signed the papers but it wasn’t exactly informed consent. Fragments of old movies came trickling back into his memory. Scientists who recruited homeless people off the street tend not to be all that ethical, in general. It was only when they’d paired him up with the kid that he found out what the project was trying to achieve.

He hadn’t had to ask. The kid talked enough for both of them, plus some. “Hey Bloodbag, you gonna give me some more of that high-octane crazy blood?” was his standard greeting as he was wheeled in of a morning.

And he couldn’t blame anyone but himself for the crazy rep. He hadn’t exactly been a compliant patient at the beginning. The only one of his cohort that they’d had to keep sedated 24/7. And it’d freaked him out even more at first, being so woolly-headed, he was convinced they were bleeding him dry. Spent half a day staring at a saline drip feeding into one arm and a vacant cannula taped to the other before he was convinced it wasn’t blood loss that had him feeling so fuzzy.

They took blood once a day, but only a couple of vacutainers worth - he could spare that. That’s how it was at first, a daily visit from a nurse, siphoning off a little blood, a bowlful of some kind of gloop which didn’t taste of very much at all, and a top-up of his sedative.

He didn’t mind being kept calm. Not even HE wanted a repeat of the mad dash after they brought him in. He tried not to think about that.

They eased off on the drugs just after he got a visit from the boss scientist, the one with the coke-bottle glasses. He seemed very happy about something, asked if Mr Rockatansky would be willing to donate a LITTLE bit more blood, transfuse it directly into a patient.

How they’d make sure it wouldn’t do him the slightest harm. Promised extra nutrients, financial recompense, all sorts of things. He didn’t care much, as long as they left him enough to stay alive.

After that, it was the glasses guy every day, taking blood personally, checking how he was feeling and eventually asking if Max would feel okay with easing off of his dose of sedative. He’d be a blood donor soon, and the drug would affect the recipient.

He’d got an idea of what they wanted with him, and it wasn’t as bad as his imagination had suggested. Besides, he was vaguely interested in what had got glasses guy so excited. He seemed like a decent guy, if weird. He’d occasionally mutter about Max’s ‘very obliging progenitor cells’ and his ‘remarkable telomerase’, which left Max both confused and amused.

Next day glasses guy wheeled the kid in, introduced him as Nux, a late-stage case. Late-stage what, though?

He found out soon enough. Within a week he knew everything about Nux that the kid knew himself. It was mainly how much an asshole his partner Slit was and how much he was looking forward to arriving in Valhalla. Whatever the fuck that meant.

Not a lot of variety in his subject matter, but then the kid was unencumbered with memories beyond his own experience. Wouldn’t that be nice? Max-not-Max thought bitterly, then felt a little guilty as he caught the eye of the woman by the door. It wasn’t that bad. They were good company, most of the time.

So their aim was to prolong the Nexus-6 lifespan? Okay, fine. Seemed reasonable. Probably in his interest to play along. Four years was no time at all. Especially if you spent the last few months as sick as this kid appeared to be. Though Nux maybe wouldn’t be ‘running on empty’ as he put it, if he could rein in his yapping and relax for ten minutes.

He was kind of rooting for the kid, so it was a kick in the gut when glasses guy showed up alone and said that they hadn’t seen any lasting benefits in the late-stage case. They were going to see what effect his blood extract had on a younger replicant and, all being well, he would bring along a new recipient within a few weeks.

So they went back to the old routine of daily sampling, minus the sedative. He didn’t need it anymore and glasses guy seemed satisfied his prize subject wouldn’t take another panic attack now he was settled in.

He hated to admit it, but he kind of missed the kid’s chatter. It was times like these he was glad to have someone else’s memories manifesting in physical form, even if no one else could see them. Jessie and Sprog showed up quite often in the solitary room, either because he was off the sedative or because they knew he’d be bored all alone.

And then, no one came to take a sample. No glasses guy, no assistant. Mid-afternoon, a red-eyed orderly came in with a bowl of nutritious glop and an apology for being late. The woman fumbled the spoon, it clanged off the floor.

“I’ll get another” came out as a sob and she positively bolted for the door before he could say anything.

He shared a glance with Jessie, before stretching an arm to the floor for the dropped spoon. Eat first, then figure out what’s going on.

Then, on stiff and cramping legs, he made his way to the door and peeked out cautiously. All was not well in the facility. White-coated figures hurried along nervously, hugging stacks of buff-coloured folders like they expected someone to step out and accost them. Frantic sounds of typing from an office across the corridor, muffled swearing. Someone trying to do something too quickly, by the sounds of it. It wasn’t only the orderly who was visibly upset. The atmosphere was thick with fear and tension.

“Time to go, Max” a voice by his ear whispered. He’d been thinking pretty much along those lines too. Something had happened, something bad. He didn’t want to stick around to see what.

Need clothes, something for his feet. No drip to disconnect, thankfully. The cannula in his other arm could stay put for the meantime. His bedside locker was easy enough to pick. He stuffed his jacket and the rest of the contents into his duffel bag, but could only find one boot.

Too risky to wear his own stuff, they probably wouldn’t just let him walk out of there.

“Max!” she called out from outside the door.

Goddamn it woman! he thought, as he recovered from a minor heart attack. Reminding himself that no one else could hear her, he moved to the door. It was easier to come when called, it saved time. He’d spent long enough arguing that it wasn’t his name, but it’d been like talking to the wall. Jessie was always stubborn. Apparently.

She was there, shooing him towards a door marked ‘Stores’. Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Making straight for the nearest pile of scrubs, he stripped off his uniform-slash-pyjamas and pulled on the green pants and shirt. It was only then that he realised he’d been raiding the laundry basket. Fuck it, the stains’ll make him more convincing. A pair of white rubber mules for his feet, and he’s good to go.

Wait - he dashed for the nearest store cupboard - unlocked too, tut - and filled his duffel with all the meds he could recognise, along with a handful of sterile needles and bloodlines. Good for trade. Right. GO.

Reaching the door handle, he froze. Loud voices, not familiar.

“ - Rockatansky. We’ve got a warrant.”

“He’s not in his room. Just let me check - ”

\- the door opened and he was face to face with the red-eyed orderly. She didn’t even flinch.

“ - no, not in here” she called to the visitors, and shut the door again. “He may be in surgery, follow me please…” the voices quickly faded.

He stuck his head round the door. Left, they’d gone left. He’d heard them. Right, right was an emergency exit. Sprog squealed with delight and bolted for the door on unsteady legs.

The alarm was tripped, but he didn’t care. He lost the ridiculous shoes at the perimeter fence. It didn’t slow him down.


	12. Chapter 12

“So what’s the plan here? If they come here, if they break through - what then?”

“We take the big rig and drive. Ain’t nothing here we can’t leave behind. Just need to slow ‘em down first.” Keep grinned, like she could think of a few ways of doing that.

“Where would we go?”

“That’s the harder part. Let me know if you’ve got any ideas.” Keep turned her full attention back to her screen.

*

After dinner, everyone had gotten a job. They’d had taken one look at HER and sent her into Keep’s ‘command centre’. No heavy lifting.

It was probably her skinny frame that’d done it as much as her barely-visible bump. Dag knew she looked like a twig with hair, but she wasn’t as breakable as most people thought.

Still, she didn’t argue. She was too curious to see what the sign over the door meant, exactly. SEEDS. She didn’t see what plants had to do with the situation. But now Dag was in love.

Keep’s setup was small for easy portability, and it probably hadn’t been doing her old back any good, sitting hunched over the laptop like that -

But Dag hadn’t gotten her mitts on a proper bit of hardware in YEARS. This was like Christmas come early. Not that she was going to get anywhere near _this_ anytime soon. Dag was sure Keep actually growled whenever she’d tried to touch the keyboard.

“So what’s your surveillance system?” Dag asked, as they watched the empty waste ground and approach road. It was pretty dull, though that was definitely a good thing. They’d had just about enough excitement. Dag just hoped they wouldn’t have to sit and monitor it constantly.

“Bunch of usb cameras hooked up to the old raspberry pi here. Marat cobbled it together a few years back, Mothers rest her. Don’t worry, they got motion sensors. When you hear ‘Louie Louie’, you’ll know we got company.”

“Louie Louie? That some kinda code?”

“Oops, we got an infant here. Okay, impromptu drill time.” Keep jabbed a gnarled finger at a large red button with a mushroom cloud doodled on it.

Speakers came to life near and far. _Twang-twang-twang…doot doot…_ then a voice like a klaxon droned out _Louayyy Louayyy, ohhhh bebe -_

Running feet, calm voices giving orders calmly, heads popping round the door to ask what, _already_??

“Just a drill, girls! Pass it on! Good work there.”

Disgruntled mutterings. One woman whose name Dag couldn’t recall paused to complain “Dammit Keep, you’ve gone and _ruined_ that song - ”

Keep shrugged and continued to toggle between cameras. The image flicked from Val coming out of the arsenal with large boxes, to the Witness doing something complicated to a large metal structure using wires and heavy-looking paint cans - Keep chuckled and muttered something about being home alone - back to the various empty views.

“Here, check this out.”

Dag’s fingers leapt back from the stack of notebooks like she’d been caught.

Keep rattled off a couple of lines on the keyboard and hit return with only a slight air of smugness. A browser window opened with a city map and various little red and blue dots.

“LAPD’s GPS signals and radio signatures. Always good to know when you’re about to be raided. Spinners in blue, ground traffic in red.” She grimaced and added “Not so useful if they’re not on official business though. Might not help in this case. What do you know about these assholes?”

“Too much.”

Dag fought the urge to spit on Keep’s reasonably clean floor. Then she shrugged wearily.

“But not enough for this” nodding towards the screen. “We didn’t exactly have the run of the place. Didn’t even have a access to infopanel til yesterday - look how that panned out.”

As Keep tutted in sympathy, Dag sat up straight.

“No, Furiosa’s your woman. She’s something high up in the security for Tyrell, she’ll know. Bastard can see how HE likes getting tracked.”

*

_Wow wow wow-wow -_

Val heard a voice singing softly under the chassis of the garbage truck they’d rolled up in. It was echoey and muffled but it sounded familiar.

_LA is a great big freeway, Put a hundred down and buy a car, In a week, maybe two, they'll make you a star, Weeks turn into years. How quick they pass, And all the stars that never were, Are parking cars and - doop di doo_

**Thump** **thump** **thump** **thump**

Furiosa had given up on the lyrics and had resorted to percussion of some kind.

Val carefully lowered the bag to the ground. Glass bottles full of methylated spirit. Hope they wouldn’t need ‘em, but never say never.

“You’re up early!” she called out, as Furiosa shuffled out from underneath with a cheery greeting.

That song - it’d had knocked Val right back to her earliest memories and she barely registered that Furiosa had just asked her a question.

“Hmm? Y’know - ” she laughed a little. “I’m pretty sure your mum used to sing that song. Though I’d have been too young to remember. Probably just been told it so often. She used to babysit me, you know.”

“Hang on. You’re _Valkyrie?_ ” Furiosa leaned forward and stared. “Little Valkyrie! It’s one of the last things she remembered from home, before she went to the city.”

“Oh - she remembered me?” Val felt a sting of pride. “I wish I could remember her more. I’d only have been four when she went away. Uh, what she say about me?” she asked, with an apprehensive smile.

“A holy terror. And _funny_. Can you say spaghetti now?” Furiosa took Val’s proffered hand and clambered to her feet.

“Oh, that’s so mean! I can’t believe she told!”

Val had only a dim memory of how her struggle with certain hard words had cracked up the grownups.

_Mary Jabassa -_

Mary had become something of an icon for young Val. In many ways, her death had shaped Val’s life. After the news had come, the Vuvalini had discouraged their daughters and sons from travelling into LA from their suburban trailer park.

What was there in the city that was so great anyway? They had a good life - who _needed_ skyscrapers and neon lights, chain restaurants and gridlock? Education was what had won young Val their reluctant blessing to try out the big city. That was an exception, though Val worried that she would have rebelled and run off, blessing or no. She was glad it hadn’t come to that, otherwise she may never have come home again after what she’d done.

It wasn’t that she’d really _wanted_ a city life. It was the principle of the thing. No, she would conquer the city, go there with rage in her heart, for Mary’s sake. It wouldn’t defeat her, and she wouldn’t fear it. Something like that anyway. Seemed a long time ago.

And now her daughter was back, and she had her eyes, and her voice too, Val felt like she’d got a second chance. A whole lot older, maybe a little wiser, Mothers willing, she could do something worthwhile, maybe redeem herself along the way.

“Oh, I nearly forgot what I came for! Keep’s looking for you.”


	13. Chapter 13

Nux had nothing left to lose.

No, that wasn’t quite true, but he could be nothing to Slit now, less than nothing. He was tainted by failure and death. Best to be forgotten.

The Immortan - it was still hard to call him Joe - he’d been a benevolent father to them all, or so it’d seemed. Nux had never seen him up close before yesterday, never had that honour, but he’d seemed like a kind, remote father, in his immaculate suit and his hair all golden and his beaming face and grand encouraging words. Especially those words on the War Boy crest “It Is By My Hand That You Will Rise From The Ashes Of This World”.

Nux had had a family, a scrapping brawling family of devoted brothers, and they would die for each other. He was blessed. At least those were his memories at first; during Year One. They’d all been given the Talk at the very beginning, all in rows before the Big Screen. But Nux had been so taken up with the sheer excitement of living, the message just hadn’t hit home. It was only when he saw his older brothers winding down in their various ways that he realised his own clock was ticking, always had been.

The only way to stop the clock was to become one of the Immortan’s chosen, to Rise from the Ashes, to become a Real Boy in Valhalla. Offworld was Capable’s name for it. Hundreds of people like him were there already, she’d said, as workers -no, slaves, that was the word - and they didn’t live any longer than they would right here, on the Ash.

Lies. Someone’s lies, but whose? Capable’s? Didn’t seem right. Could angels lie? Nux didn’t know. There were lots of things Nux didn’t know, he was learning more of them every minute. It still felt like a gainer though, finding out that there’s stuff to find out.

He’d overheard them say that Rictus himself had killed the Ace, that Furiosa saw his car leaving Ace’s Place just before she found him dead. That it wasn’t an accident, a fall. Nux wouldn’t have believed it yesterday, would’ve accused Furiosa of killing the Ace herself to traitor the Immortan some more.

In the coupe, Slit had declared he’d always thought Furiosa was up to something. He’d heard the Immortan was jealous that she was messing about with his best girl, and this stunt had proved it. Nux thought Slit was full of shit, but didn’t get around to saying so. He was too preoccupied with grabbing this last of opportunities. Besides, it was his last chance to prove himself and, if they were to ascend together as a team, this was not a time for bickering.

Heart racing, he’d screamed out to the Immortan as he sped past. He wouldn’t have dared if he hadn’t been buzzed on a double snort of Can-D, but today was his day, such a lovely day too, and he would do no wrong.

And he was rewarded with a glance! He was awaited, no doubt! It was HIS turn, just in time too. They were going to bring back Furiosa, him and Slit, make her pay for what she’d done. And, oh how he could drive. No one could ever give him the slip.   
  
Only yesterday -

Yesterday had been a weird one, for sure. The weather and so much besides. He’d had a huge dustup with Slit after the coupe’s engine got flooded.

Not such a lovely day after all, he’d lamented, as they watched the lunk of a garbage truck plough on through the hammering rain while they sat like a pair of defective meatbags, water lapping round their boots.

Slit had blamed Nux’s mediocre driving and Nux had got right into Slit’s face about his dumbass insistence that they could follow A HUGE TRUCK through a flood.

Slit had stormed off, presumably to find the others, leaving Nux TRYING to stay in a rage but slipping into a horrible numbness, sick to his stomach. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, not today, not his last day on this ash pile. He’d wanted Slit by his side, but Slit had called him scum and he’d called Slit worse, and now he had to KEEP MOVING because it hurt too much to stay still.

So he splashed through the water in the direction the truck had gone. He would have run til he dropped but there it was, only two blocks away, pulled up in a halo of street light. The rain had stopped just as quickly as it began, and the reflections were beautiful.

Maybe his luck was still in. _Keep_ _the_ _faith_. He crept up close, found handholds and waited.

*

And now an angel was soothing and breaking him by turns. Nux wanted to die, even a Nothing Death, when Capable found him. He’d wished she would throw him off the truck again, right into traffic, like the other one.

He shivered at the memory.

He’d seen the Immortan’s best girl fall from the back of the truck, hit - crushed? - by the Immortan’s ride. Nux’s own Bloodbag was driving the truck too; that added to the hideousness of it. If he could crush his own skull, he would’ve.

But she’d stopped him, with her distracting voice and hair and hands. Her words made him tremble with - what? He couldn’t name the feeling, something halfway between nausea and relief.

His Immortan had promised them life, but he had killed the man who was making that happen. His girls were escaping from him, not stolen away at all. Joe was coming after the nice Bloodbag for something that happened long ago, Nux didn’t know what.

He’d fallen in with people who had no good things to say about Nux’s benevolent father. And here he was, providing covering fire for the traitoring Furiosa and her new friends here.

And why has he gone over to the enemy? Probably because they needed him. It felt good to be needed. It felt nice to belong. He’d been excommunicated for all of an hour and it had been awful. _Here_ he had his own guardian angel, showing him how to die for SOMETHING.

The way things were going, Nux thought as he reloaded, he wasn’t going to be the only one.


	14. Chapter 14

Dag had always said that, if she had the choice, she’d use her teeth. Tear his throat out. That was a very Dag statement, but Toast had blinked at her sister’s vehemence. She didn’t doubt that she meant it.

That was too messy for Toast. You’d get covered in blood that way. She’d had enough of Joe’s mess. No, she’d take him out cleanly. Single bullet to the head. Just close enough, but not too close.

 _No_ , Dag, it WOULDN’T hurt half enough, but that didn’t matter so much now they were so very close to being shot of him. You could trust a bullet at least. Toast could, anyway.

*

It seemed like no time at all had passed before that ridiculous siren went off. Revs and shouts from beyond the perimeter fence, but no gunshots QUITE yet. Not from this side of the fence anyway.

The snipers had agreed to stay out of sight, hold fire til it was certain they had an attack on their hands. Maybe they would just pass by, maybe it was a coincidence, they’d keep on searching elsewhere.

They spun their stupid fucking donuts while the meatsack flamed his favourite toy. Normal enough behaviour, no need to worry yet. Dag tried to keep Cheedo from fretting, probably scared she’d flip out again.

Toast wasn’t too worried. Since they’d met these friends of Furi’s, the girl had some extra backbone, she was sitting watching, breathing good and slow. Cheedo had a nice new headband on and looked pretty badass in a spiritual kind of way. Toast wondered if it was like Dumbo’s magic feather, something to make her believe she could fly. Whatever worked was fine by her.

Toast had begged Furiosa to let her join the snipers on the highest tower, some tall concrete thing, she couldn’t guess what it’d been used for, maybe some kind of gravel slide. This place had been a quarry back in the old days, they’d told her.

She could reload for the shooters, like the War Boy was doing on the perimeter tower.

 _She’d_ _be_ _alright_ , she’d wheedled: Furi’s friend was stationed up there and she was seriously dangerous-looking.

They’d looked up and watched Val take out one after another of the cannon-fodder breaking down the fence. Furi’s face was hard to read at the best of times, but it was clear she had a pretty good opinion of the woman who was both bait and sharpshooter.

She looked back down at Toast and nodded with the tiniest of smiles. “Go.”

Anyone else would’ve added something like “Be safe” but Furiosa didn’t waste her words on things that didn’t need to be said.

*

Any hope that Joe’s crew would pass on was long gone. They’d started taking pot shots through the fence, trying to get a reaction. Trying to flush them out.

The final straw was the rocket launcher. That was just rude. Furiosa shot the man right between the eyes as he raised his weapon, getting a sidelong look from the Witness that had Toast smothering a laugh.

Now was not the time for laughing though. No, it was game on.

*

“Holy hell - ”

Keep’s heart sank as not one but TWO spinners appeared out of the drizzle. Well, they’d tried, but she couldn’t track all the traffic in this goddamn city. And Furiosa had disabled the vehicles she could, but this Joe prick sounds like the sort to call in favours. He probably had a whole fleet of the things at his disposal. It was time to be moving on.

She turned towards the High Tower, saw Val and the Toast girl hard at work doing - what? Keep knew her girl would have some trick up her sleeve, but she didn’t have time to stand and watch. They had to load up the truck before this turned into a full-on shitstorm.

The fence had done them proud, with a bit of attention. Keep had been concerned that the Quiet Man’s explosives would’ve been the end of it, but he’d planted them far enough beyond the perimeter. She’d gleefully muttered _kaboom_ under her breath every time one went off.

But the unwelcome distraction from above had given the bastards an opportunity to break it down.

The first car was through already, flattening the chain link and barbed wire into the mud. A young fella was hanging out the passenger side, yelling abuse at the Nux lad, _filth_ , _traitor_ , that kind of thing. Keep thought she’d be angry too, if she had a face like that.

The Quiet Man wasn’t so quiet now, he seemed to be upset about something. What’s that he’s yelling? THAT’S MY CAR? Car thieves too, now?

The windscreen shattered, the driver slumped down. Nice shot, Val. That’ll slow ‘em down. And it did buy them a few minutes, since the car ran out of control long enough to jam against a concrete pillar and partially block the hole in the fence.

Within minutes they were loaded up, Furiosa behind the wheel, the girls tucked up safe in the back with the spare bikes, kit and weapons.

Keep couldn’t keep track of the Quiet Man, he seemed to shift about constantly between the cab and the back, taking the roof as passage. Or the Nux lad, for that matter. Seemed to be doing something useful, judging from the shouts from her sisters as they closed ranks around the truck in readiness.

Keep whistled up to her girl on the Tower. Whatever she was planning to do, she’d better do it now. Val waved down at the party, aimed and fired.

A harpoon shot from the Tower, snagging the nearest spinner, making it lurch dangerously. She’d rigged up the harpoon gun so it was fixed to the Tower railings, _nice_.

That’s spinner tethered, for now.

Toast scrambled down the Tower while Val fiddled with the fixings. Keep jiggled in her seat impatiently, anxious for both of them to GET IN THE TRUCK. Do a job properly and all that, but those flying asshats will probably cut themselves free anyway.

A thump from the roof indicated the Toast girl had at least made it. Keep automatically looked up and shuffled over in the passenger seat in case the girl would head for the cab.

Then her heart stopped at an almighty explosion and a groan of collapsing masonry.

“No, no, no - ” came a wail from above.

Furiosa leapt out of the cab, and Keep followed. Where was the High Tower? The top was gone, and so was Val. Oh Mary Mother of All, where was Val?

“Where is she?” Furiosa screamed up to Toast, who turned towards her, hands on her head helplessly.

Neither of them saw what Keep saw, the man on the zip line.

*

Oh, she was tired. Keep had a dim recollection of having been very very busy lately.

Had the music been up too loud? Everything seemed very far off. The girls in the back were chattering, but she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying.

They were moving. Driving. She wasn’t, but someone was. Keep rolled her eyes towards the driver. Ah, it’s young Mary. She’s had a haircut. How long had it been? She looks older. Tired too.

Been a long day for all of them probably. Some kind of party? She could still hear the fireworks.

Her hand relaxed, she let drop what she was holding, felt it clang off the floor. She’d just have a little nap, let the young ones have their fun. She needed her rest these days, so the doc said. Maybe he was right. Geraldine was making her more tired these days, though Keep had been feeling better since she’d given her a name. Presumably gliomas had feelings too.

There was something she’d meant to do, what was it? Keep struggled to remember. Something about - the girl might not be staying long - oh yes, she wants to borrow the laptop.

Smart girl, that one, all spiky and flowery-white. Like a yucca. Just - reach for it. Ah. Here it is. It was in her lap the whole time. Of course.

Keep smiled, satisfied, and closed her eyes. Mary and little Val and the yucca girl. Smart girls all.


	15. Chapter 15

Max tried to calm himself, breathing deeply now he had nothing to do but sit still and hope.

Hah.

The images whirling unbidden through his mind were not those to calm him, but he couldn’t stop them. Too tired to fight now - 

How the War Boys had cut through the tether and were revving the engine, preparing to leave with Toast.

The faces around him reflected the helplessness Max felt. As if things couldn’t get any worse, there was Cheedo running towards the departing spinner screaming,

‘Rictus, don’t leave me!’

Another prize, this one won without a fight.

The spinner touched back down, the huge hulk-guy jumped out and lifted Cheedo on board. She joined the other girl on the back seat - 

\- and demurely kicked the coiled rope off the edge with her heel just as it took off.

That was something _else_. He’d laughed in delight at the turnaround. He’d thought she was bailing on a lost cause. But they _weren’t_. 

Max tried to focus on that - the brightest glimmer of triumph in this whole bloodstained mess - but the rest would still crowd in, whirling round his head.

Maybe it was for the best, he needed the distraction from the here and now. Besides, memories = adrenaline = heartbeat = _move_ _blood_ _faster_.

Furiosa - she didn’t laugh - she didn’t hesitate for a _second_ \- she made straight for the line.

Was she planning to tackle this man-mountain standing right there, miraculously still unaware of her presence? She’d have the element of surprise, sure, but _holy_ _shit_.

Oh _hell_ , Max thought, picked up a wrench and lobbed it at the man’s thick skull hard enough to get his attention.

He got it alright, after a few seconds processing.

And Max didn’t even know -

*

“She’s been hurt! Real bad!” someone had called out to him while he’d been dealing with the other spinner, the one that’d rammed the tower. It had damaged itself in the process so it wasn’t difficult to get on board.

Yes, even from here he could see Furiosa bleeding out as she made her way up the rope. It seemed an eternity til Max could take the controls and land safe, the ugly bastard dead in the driver seat.

By the time he’d got there, she’d already done it. The man was freshly dead, a clean death, almost certainly better than he’d deserved. She must’ve snapped his neck, the best way in such a confined space.

Max had arrived just in time to see all the fight drain out of Furiosa. She would’ve slipped right over the edge but for the hands that grabbed at her, his and Cheedo’s. Toast was otherwise occupied, having taken the controls, shoving the corpse aside and spitting on it for emphasis.

“He’s dead!!” rang out shrilly, for the benefit of the others waiting on the ground. Or maybe it was just to relieve Cheedo’s own feelings. Max had no business being proud of anyone, but he was proud of this scared kid nonetheless. Furiosa couldn’t have done it without her. Not in _time_ anyway.

A shiver went through him. Maybe it was the blood loss. No, this was nothing, nothing at all. Don’t die, don’t die -

They’d lost one for certain already. Two, counting Angharad. And two others, he was almost certain.

Nux. The kid. He’d risked himself to save them all. It didn’t look to Max like a suicide mission. He would’ve followed if he could. If Max had only been stronger, better prepared, _someone_ _else_ , he could’ve put the big guy down, at least _weakened_ him -

\- he shook his head.

No - pick your battles. Be here now. Help this way.

That’s what Jessie was saying, right by his elbow. The one that wasn’t hooked up to Furiosa.

They were safe, and their dead were avenged. That was all Furiosa had wanted. “Get them home” she’d gasped in his ear.

But that wouldn’t be enough. They were _all_ going home - wherever that was.

*

He’d had a moment’s horror, a movement catching his eye. The kind of panic you feel when you see your child pick up a sharp object or a pillbox.

But no, Sprogmonster, no no Daddy’s not angry,

He wasn’t, because now Max remembered what he carried in his bag. Yes, he can USE these. He remembered his EMT training and grabbed a sterile scalpel -

There - better - no, no, you gotta stay awake -

\- but now there was only a rushing in his ears where her hoarse breathing had been. It’s over. He couldn’t help -

He’d jumped out of his skin as a baby voice squealed

“Bubbak!”

Oh. Of _course_. That’s my boy.

Yes, here. He grabbed a sealed packet and held it up to the dim light. “Field Blood Transfusion Kit”. He tossed aside the typing card and got straight to work with the alcohol wipes.

“Hold this up” he handed the rapidly reddening tube to the nearest person. They were all crammed in tight, so he didn’t have to reach far.

“Wait - you can’t - you don’t know her type - ” the driver, Toast, that was her. “You need lab tests and - ”

Her voice tailed off as he glanced up at the rear view with a frown.

Lab tests. He’d had plenty.

“It’s okay. He’s got good blood. The _best_ blood, Nux said.”

He was learning their voices now, that was the red haired one, the kid’s champion. Max was sorry his blood hadn’t been good enough to save the kid, but it might just keep _her_ alive a little longer.


	16. Chapter 16

They drove in stunned silence for a while, everyone lost in their own thoughts. Crammed in as they were, it was impossible to feel alone; that was the only thing keeping Dag together.

Joe’s spinner was overloaded and  the energy cell running low, forcing them to stay at ground level. It might’ve been an bad move to abandon the truck, but they’d had to think quick, and get away quick, for so many reasons.

They already had one corpse on their hands and Furiosa looked likely to be another. It was easier to shift the living than the dead, so they all piled into the one working Spinner.

The second one was out of action - all shot up and the front end smashed in - so those who didn’t fit took to their bikes.

The War Boys, no longer pinned down by the Vuvalini snipers, were making the dash to their vehicles and would be after them in no time.

Some were down, others had bolted - presumably the ones who’d killed that sleazy bean counter by accident while trying to hit the Witness. But there were still enough of them determined to give chase.

They left the truck. It was big and slow, and had been followed too easily.

Nux said he could block the road with it, and follow on one of the bikes.

It’d been a good idea, such a good idea. But Dag had forgotten about Rictus. They all had.

He’d been knocked out cold, but must’ve come to, because they heard a bellow over the roar of engines.

Oh, he was angry.

Angry enough to grab a six-foot girder and start bashing at the truck in frustration. Then to grab his ever-present flamer and start after the earthbound spinner.

They’d watched in hope and terror as Nux started the truck’s engine; he began to move off, turning the wheel to avoid the howling, flaming obstacle in his path.

Three seconds later there was a flash, a boom, and the truck leapt sideways and overturned.

They had no choice but to keep moving.

*

Cheedo leaned over the back of the passenger seat and whispered “Toast wants to know where we’re going.”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea. Furiosa said her old school is near here!” Capable suggested. “I can’t remember the name, but it sounded something religious. They’ll have to take her in. It’s a church thing. Sanctuary, that’s it.”

“There’s a Sacred Heart of Our Holy - ” Dag began, peering down at Keep’s laptop.

“Yes! That’s it! Go there!”

“ - says here it’s a _boys_ ’ school. Sure that’s it?”

“Furi, was it Sacred Heart?” Capable asked Furiosa, in a whisper.

“Sacr - ” Furiosa’s eyelids fluttered open briefly, and closed again.

That was confirmation enough. Capable turned back to Dag. “Is it nearby? Go there. It’ll be safer than a hospital.”

“What you talking about? We haven’t done anything _wrong_!” Toast called over her shoulder.

“Dunno if the cops‘d agree with you there” Althea chipped in tiredly from the footwell. “We’re in a stolen spinner. And there’s a dead man in the trunk, in case you’ve forgotten. Best to keep our heads down for a bit. Avoid any paperwork, yeah?”

“And we’re headed for a House if God. This is gonna be awkward.” Toast shook her head, but didn’t offer any further argument.

“Y’know what? - I doubt there’s anyone there to ask tricky questions” Dag looked up from the screen. “It looks like it’s closed down. But if its on the map, presumably it’s still standing. We can break in, stay there on the quiet.”

Capable, whose visions of a helpful nun or priest ushering them into a cloistered solitude were fading under this scrutiny, was relieved by this development.

“Oh. Okay then” her vision altering accordingly. “That’s better. We can hide out, keep our heads down for a while.”

*

“Uh, well, it’s definitely closed. Crumbling, even.”

They sat on the spinner’s hood and surveyed their sanctuary. It was a nice old building though, even kinda gracious looking. There was a tree gamely growing out of one of the outhouses. Dag felt a sympathy with the place.

“Closed down in ’83, says here. Historical Society records. I wondered why there wasn’t much information online.” She did some mental calculations. “ _That_ can’t be right. There must be some other Sacred-Something near here.”

“Unless - oh no - ” Capable shivered. “If it _is_ the right place - You know what that means? For Furiosa?”

“What?” Toast asked in a voice that already knew the answer.

“Ssh. Not here.”

*

Capable and Toast made a cursory exploration of the building, flanked by a gun-toting Althea and Bev.

The place was empty, except for a family of opossums who had had the place to themselves so long they’d forgotten how to play dead.

It didn’t smell too good, between the damp and wildlife, but some of the rooms were still pretty well furnished and could be made comfortable for Furiosa in a few minutes.

“ - she let slip as much to Angharad one night. She’d had this uneasy feeling that things weren’t as they seemed. Dreams, memories, LACK of memories. Some things just didn’t add up. They’d had a few drinks by then, of course. Well, Furiosa had. You know Angharad didn’t drink much, even before she found out she was - y’know.”

“You think this proves it, then?” Toast waves a hand at their surroundings.

“Only she can know for sure. _I_ won’t be asking, anyway.”

“Doesn’t matter to me” shrugged Bev. “She’s Mary’s girl, either way.”

Althea paused to shake out some old blankets and lay them on the narrow bed. She looked round the room for a moment and sighed.

“It’s too bad she won’t live. But then again, who does?”


	17. Chapter 17

Maybe he should’ve _told_ someone he was heading back out? It hadn’t really occurred to him at the time. Max kind of wished he had, though. The idea of them thinking he’d bailed out kept nagging at him.

Ah well. He’d be back soon - assuming he didn’t get arrested for blundering about a crime scene.

The yard was deserted. He could see no bodies, no injured. And no police.

It was strangely reassuring to see the wrecked fence and buildings; even the sight of his own car wrapped round a pillar. It meant that he hadn’t imagined the whole thing.

He shook himself, tried to remember what he’d come here for.

Oh yes. For answers. They needed to know - HE needed to know - what’d become of the kid and the woman who fell. He’d keep seeing them otherwise.

He’d taken a bike, because there was nothing else. The spinner wouldn’t last another trip without refuelling and he needed to _know_.

Furiosa was on her feet, unsteady but walking, but if he went in there with her he was afraid he would delay and delay.

He’d looked up at the grass-hung gutters and the birdnests in the eaves. Nice place. Quiet.

He backed away while they were busy. Towards a bike. Looked back once in time to see Furiosa turn at the threshold.

She nodded at him. He didn’t know if it meant goodbye or good luck. Either was fine.

*

From where he stood, there was no sign of anyone in the truck’s cab. Hope flared for a second, but Max damped it down. The War Boys must’ve taken him, either dead or alive.

He hurried forward and froze.

There was Nux, but he wasn’t alone. He and the former driver of Max’s car were slumped tiredly against the overturned truck.

Quiet, unmoving.

He moved closer and cautiously reached out. No pulse on either.

He looked to his right, saw bootmarks and a dragging trail leading back to the passenger side. The door, a jagged wreck, lay on the ground. Blood was pooled in the tracks.

The other War Boy - _traitor, filth;_ he could put the ugly words to the ugly face - he’d had got the kid out, and they’d both died.

What had been the intention? A capture or a rescue? Max didn’t know, but the way they were sitting there all propped up on each other -

\- it kind of looked like they might’ve made up their differences.

Slit the Asshole. Got to be.

He bit his lip and walked away a few paces. Okay. He’d have to move them eventually, take them back to the school. Both of them.

But not yet. They were going nowhere they hadn’t gone already.

*

Da!!!

What you found, kiddo?

Max scrambled up to the top of a small pile of rubble. He paused to touch the chubby cheek beaming up at him, but remembered he couldn’t, or shouldn’t.

“Down here!”

An echoey voice called up from ground level - or what _had_ been ground level half a day ago.


	18. Chapter 18

So here’s how it happened.

A split second before the Spinner smashed into the High Tower, Val jumped.

Pretty much at a 90 degree angle to the impact, probably how she’d managed to avoid getting hit by debris in a big way. Her fall was temporarily broken by the roof of a shipping container, _just rusted enough_.

*

A moment of panic; she couldn’t catch a breath, everything was strange, muffled, ringing in her ears -

\- and then the light was dimmer, just a weak halo of light in the darkness. Was this what the afterlife looked like?

She took a deep breath and coughed weakly.

 _Owwwwwwwww_ -

No. She’s still breathing and everything hurts. Not dead.

Probably.

She blinked gritty eyes and surveyed her surroundings. Above, a deep blue shape in the darkness, ragged about the edges. Underneath, rough but just yielding enough, a big pile of gravel. Some shouts and the sound of engines, getting fainter. Then silence.

She’d lain there listening, barely daring to breathe til she was pretty sure it was safe.

She could move her fingers and toes, that was a good start. But a dull pain in her left leg was building, getting insistent, now the distraction of external danger was gone. Shit.

As was a stabbing pain in her chest that jabbed at her with every breath. She didn’t even want to contemplate trying to climb out of there.

If she could find the door - if it opened outwards - 

She felt around her ribs, hoping not to find blood. Sometimes a stabbing pain meant you’d been stabbed. Or _impaled_.

But no. If it was just broken ribs or something, she could maybe have a go at this.

She clenched her abdominal muscles and tried to lift herself onto her elbows -

\- ngggggh

Oh no that just was not going to happen.

But there was her duffel bag; it had managed to stay with her all the way. What was in there?

A hip flask of Keep’s special moonshine, that’s what. Should render her comfortably numb, or at least stupid enough to keep moving when her body was telling her to quit.

Val stretched out an arm to hook the strap with her little finger.

And froze. Footsteps, heavy ones. A man’s voice. Sounds a bit like the Quiet Guy. He’s not alone. Sounds like he’s talking to a _child_. That can’t be right -

No, it’s probably Death, coming to clear up after the battle.

But wasn’t that HER job? The Valkyrie, right? She repressed a chuckle. It wasn’t funny enough to be worth the pain.

Oh boy, she needed to get out of this hole one way or another. She was clearly losing it, even without the help of Keep’s liquor.

It’d be dark soon, and cold. She couldn’t stay here, and she really didn’t think she could get out without help. 

_What you found, kiddo?_

That _was_ the Quiet Guy! Definitely!

Val took a deep breath (yes, it hurt) and called out.

“Hey! Down here!”

Val squinted up at the head-shaped silhouette peering down at her. “That you?” She struggled to think what to call him. “Witness?”

“Max. It’s Max.”

Long pause. Or maybe she was just hearing things now. No, there’s the voice again.

“You hurt?”

That’s the quiet guy for sure. And he does have a name after all.

“I’ll live.”

Shouting did hurt, though. Keep it brief.

“Ribs. Leg.”

A rope dropped down.

“Wait!” she called. The head reappeared. “Try the door.”

She pointed to the far end of the container.

The head disappeared.

Long pause, much thumping at the door. A metallic scream of a decade of rust giving up. A minor landslide. Too much light all at once.

A grunt of satisfaction, a sound of gravelly scrambling and there he was. Her knight in scruffy leather.

He glanced at the rope dangling from the ceiling.

“Hmph. Better. Wasn’t much looking forward to - ”

He had a bloodstained rag tied round his hand so, yeah, Val reckoned not.

“Lucky” he knelt down awkwardly beside her with a lift of the eyebrows. Damn right she was. She wasn’t sure this wasn’t some shitty kind of afterlife and that the Quiet Man was dead too.

 _That spinner had hit the Tower_ -

“No kidding” she agreed. “Help me up? Sitting, I mean. No, it’s okay, really. Don’t think I can walk on this though.”

She sat up, with a bit of help, clutching her ribs. He took a brief but careful examination of her ankle. It was swollen and bruised but didn’t look as bad as she’d feared.

“I’ll get something for a splint” he moved to get up.

“No, wait. Tell me - what happened? Are they - ?”

“They’re fine. Only - ” his face fell. “Your friend, the older one - ” the words tripped over themselves in the rush to get out. “ - she died, head wound, don’t think she suffered and - I’m sorry.”

Val’s eyes squeezed shut. Oh, Keep. You got to go out with a bang after all.

“ _Kaboom_ ” he whispered, to himself.

“What?”

“She said that a lot.” He looked apologetic, like he’d crossed a line, said something too personal.

“Yeah - she did” Val took a deep breath - _ow_ \- “It’s not like we hadn’t been preparing for it. She had a brain tumour. I’m glad she didn’t have to - y’know, hospices and all that. And now she’s gone, just like that.”

Long silence.

“Splint?” he suggested.

Nod.

*

She talked to distract herself from the process. Knowing his name didn’t make him any more chatty.

“Ngh, sorry” he said, for the third time.

“Sss’okay” Val replied between clenched teeth. “Just broken. Live long enough, it’ll heal - uh - ” she tailed off, embarrassed.

He looked at her enquiringly, which only made her redden more.

“It’s just - Furiosa said you told her you were a - replicant, so - that might’ve been a bit insensitive is all.”

“Oh. I’m - ” he looked up, frowning somewhere beyond her left shoulder. “I’m prob’ly not.”

Val nodded understandingly, although she didn’t.

He talked to himself, and his eyes would follow things that she couldn’t see, but he seemed to be working through some issues and that was probably a good thing  - 

There was a story here and she’d  be interested to hear it, once they were all safe and well.

*

“You had a tetanus shot recently?” Max grumbled as he dabbed at her cuts and grazes with antiseptic while the light lasted.

“Hmph. Doubt it. Don’t suppose you got one in your first aid kit there?” she asked, with a bitter laugh. 

He shook his head regretfully. “Couldn’t keep ‘em cold enough.”

“Are you a doctor?” she asked, surprised into seriousness.

Another shake. “EMT training. For cops. Used to be one.”

His hand was shaking a bit now, and she changed the subject. Furiosa had implied the guy didn’t seem to like questions. Focus on practicalities. Like transportation.

“How’d you get here?” she asked.

“Bike. Could do with a car?” he looked at her hopefully.

“I could ride pillion” she offered, though she didn’t sound convincing. It would not be a comfortable trip, with cracked ribs and a splinted leg.

Shake of the head. “Got two more passengers to carry. Nux and his friend. They’re dead” he added, quickly.

Shit. Poor kid. No point speculating how he died, there’d been plenty of bullets flying around. And had something blown up?

Focus, Val. What about the Shitbucket? It WAS an emergency.

“There’s an old - Cimarron” she suggested, without enthusiasm. “Don’t know if it still runs. And it’s a stick shift.”

“I’ll go see” He got unsteadily to his feet and swayed. To describe him as grey-faced would’ve been a compliment.

“Whoa. Sit your ass down. I thought you said you weren’t hurt?”

“I wasn’t. Just lost a bit of blood.”

And with the reluctant air of someone who doesn’t want to explain but know they can’t avoid it, “Furiosa got hurt, was bleeding out, and - ” he pointed to his inner elbow.

“Eaten anything since?”

“Trail mix” he replied, in a tone that was mournful in the extreme.

However, Max brightened when a handful of squashed Honey Buns dropped in his lap. Emergency rations.

She handed him a bottle of water, but kept the flask to herself.

“What? This is medicinal. And you’re gonna be driving.”


	19. Chapter 19

The Shitbucket surpassed expectations, although they _had_ been pretty low.

“It’s alive!” Max almost beamed. He was more visibly enthused by getting the Cimarron rolling than Val had thought possible.

“Nice job! Okay for gas?”

“It’ll do. Just got to pick up the others.”

*

They’d had to lift them into the trunk. Well, Max did. Val made sure they fitted. She was grateful rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet

Finally on the road. Max had insisted her leg needed to be elevated so she was stretched out in the back seat. He’d even found some ice in the communal kitchen, presumably while hunting for some more food.

Val wasn’t hungry anymore. She had something on her mind.

“Max?”

“Hm?”

“Did you know Nux well?”

No reply. She tried again.

“For long?”

“Maybe two months. Not that well.”

“Had he been sick for long? Was it cancer? I’d thought he just had a bit of flu - ”

“Yeah - he had it pretty bad. Unlucky.”

“I didn’t realise replicants got so sick at the end.”

“There’s a long name for it. It’s some genetic thing, they haven’t got enough of something. Cells wear out too quickly, or get cancerous, so they die young.”

“You sure you’re not a doctor?”

“A doctor explained it me. Repeatedly. Oh - ”

Max visibly shuddered. The car veered very slightly.

“You alright? What’s the matter?”

“I’m fine. Just thought of something. Its’s Furiosa - that’s  why you’re asking?”

“I’m just worried about her, I know it’s stupid, but it just doesn’t add up. Mary would’ve been in the city for barely six months before she was killed. It’s hard to see where she’d have had TIME to have a baby. She left home in ‘89, so - ”

\- Furiosa _could_ be in her mid-twenties - 

“Unless she was pregnant when she left” she mused. “Or she had her really young, maybe had her adopted, sent away. But the Mothers would’ve taken care of her - ”

Val shook her head impatiently. None of that mattered. The real issue was staring her in the face now.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me if she’s not really her daughter, but - Max, if she’s not who she thinks she is, does that mean she’s dying?”

Max pulled over onto a rest stop and leaned over the driver seat, biting his lip nervously. He took a breath, looked her right in the eye and said - 

“Glasses guy said I had great telomeres.”

Val’s face must’ve been a picture, because Max made a kind of exasperated huff and collected his words.

“That thing replicants don’t have. That’s why they don’t live more than a few years. My blood is full of them. He said so. Doctor - Ericsson? Eridson.”

“So you’ll live forever. That’s great, but - _oh_. Wait there”

The penny dropped.

“But is it as simple as that? Just - giving your blood?”

Max did a ‘don’t ask me’ shrug.

“They tried it with the kid back there. He was too far gone and the doc was gonna try it on a younger replicant. But then he got killed and everything got weird, so I cleared out.”

“Okay. It’s worth a shot. I mean, you’ve already done it, so - let’s see how she gets on.” Val tailed off. “I haven’t said thanks yet. Thanks.”

Max grunted and turned his attention back to the steering column. “We should get moving. Get you back there. You’ll like it.”

“But you’re coming too, right? I mean, it’s up to you, but - ”

“I - ” he looked caught. “Okay, sure. Gotta see.”

*

They rolled up on the cracked and weed-choked asphalt of Sacred Heart just after nightfall.

As Max got out and turned to open the rear door, a shrill voice from a smashed window yelled -

“Witness! In a car! He’s got someone with him.”

Doors slammed, feet came running.

“It’s not the cops is it?” That was Althea.

“It’s Val!” came the other voice. Toast! Oh, thank god. Max hadn’t mentioned anyone else being _killed_ but -

Much tears and hugging as Val carefully shuffled her way out of the back seat.

“Oh am I glad to see you guys!” she gasped, her arms round Althea’s neck. “Where’s Furiosa?”

“We’ve put her to bed. She’s running a bit of a temperature. She’s asleep right now, be right as rain in a few days I’ll bet.”

Val looked at Max in dismay.


	20. Chapter 20

“She _did_ get stabbed in the chest, remember? The wound’s a little infected, that’s all. It’d be weirder if she was up and walking around.”

Val supported between Max and Toast, they followed Althea to a room, thankfully, on the first floor.

There Furiosa lay in the light of the kerosene lamp, eye swollen, much bruised but not _sick_ , not frail-looking even now. Not like poor Nux, with his hollow eyes and painfully swollen glands.

Val felt a restoration of confidence, but feared she was kidding herself.

“Look at her, Max. She’s _perfect_. How could she be dying?” Val whispered.

“See here.” Althea pointed to the reddened area around her dressing. “She’s got an infection, but she’s fighting it.”

Phyllis nodded in agreement. “It’s still too early to tell, and you’ve got your own troubles. Let’s take a look at those ribs now. Lay down here.”

A few minutes of being poked and prodded, and Val sat propped up on musty pillows, a dose of blessed something beginning to suffuse through her system.

She was on the brink of sleep, the others’ low voices fading into the background, when -

*

“Phyl?” Furiosa asked muzzily.

“Hey, Furi. Look what Max brought you.” Capable spoke in a soft voice.

“Max back?” Furiosa blinked in the dim light with her one good eye.

“Yes, he went and got Val.”

Capable’s soothing tones were interrupted by Toast, who’d noticed Val’s attempts to reach out.

“Cheedo, shove her bed over a bit.” Toast barked.

Val’s bed jolted as the younger girl put her shoulder to it.

“It’s caught on something! Can someone lift the other side?”

“Carefully!” Phyllis warned.

“Oh Val, you should’ve seen her. She ripped his fucking head off!” Toast declared, her voice coming from somewhere near the floor, presumably busy unsnagging the bed leg.

They were all so engaged by the task of shunting furniture over frayed carpet that no one but Val, and maybe Max, saw Furiosa turn her head and shape the words -

“Thought you were dead too.”

A couple of shoves more and Val could brush her fingers over Furiosa’s outstretched stump.

Max, perched on a packing crate watching the scene, was distracted by Furiosa’s good hand clutching at his sleeve.

It wasn’t long before Furiosa fell back to sleep on her tear-wet pillow; her face turned towards Val, and her hand holding tightly onto Max.

*

“Well! That went as well as could be expected.” Bev folded her arms in satisfaction.

“No thanks to you. Jeez, I thought she was going to take a swing at you.”

“What happened?” Toast asked, looking up from her rummaging. She was trying to find something that would do as a crutch for Val in the meantime. It wasn’t looking hopeful.

“Althea called in a favour. Her sister-in-law’s friend is a vet - ”

“Janette the Vet.”

“ - yes, thank you Bev. So she called in to see Furiosa and Val. Gave them both their shots without any fuss, fine. Max too. Confirmed Furi’s wound was infected but _umm’ed_ and _ahh’ed_ about whether she should get ‘embroiled in a dubious situation’. Then _Bev_  here piped up that she’d go online and buy some antibiotics off a website she knows.”

Bev grinned and looked very pleased with herself, but said nothing.

”Which set _Janette_ off on a long tirade about irresponsible self-medication and that’s how humanity would wipe itself out.”

Phyllis blinked and shook her head. “She didn’t look the type to swear like that.”

”Upshot was, she took a swab of Furi’s wound and said she’d get it tested, see what would be the best thing to give her.”

“See? I played her. Knew what would get her onboard.”

Phyllis looked dubious. “You knew jack shit, Bev.”

“Will she come back?” Toast asked.

“In a few hours, she said” Althea nodded, making for the door.

“Max is talking about giving her some more blood!” she called after her.

“Fine. Just don’t tell Janette!”

*

Phyllis went outside to meet Althea and Capable.

The two War Boys had been laid out in as respectful a manner as the Vuvalini could manage. Cleaned up and eyes closed, they looked fairly decent.

Phyllis wondered what era she’d found herself in, where tampering with evidence was no longer a no-no and they could prepare the dead like out of some old book.

Strange. The Vuvalini had been living outside the law for some time now, this should be just another day.

That being said, dead bodies hadn’t exactly been an everyday occurrence, so it was kinda disturbing to see how readily those two girls offered to take care of the dead bastard yesterday.

Dag in particular assured them that the remains wouldn’t be identifiable. Almost like they knew what they were doing. Phyllis hoped it was just theoretical, not practical experience.

The two lads would be taken better care of.

A shared grave, good and deep. Some kind of box to put them in. They’d grow up a cutting from that tree over there, plant it over the grave when it was ready. It looked pretty tough, not too particular.

They all said goodbye to the one they knew, and the one they didn’t. There was a debate over whether they should bury their name tags in the grave, or tie them round the sapling when it was planted.

Capable had a romantic idea that, as the tree grew, it would just — swallow their names.

It’d probably take about thirty years, Phyllis thought privately but, hey, why be that person?


	21. Chapter 21

Furiosa was up and about after a week. The vet was good to her word and brought a pack of antibiotics a couple of hours after her visit. Presumably ones that _wouldn’t_ accelerate the apocalypse.

She was already looking much better. The wound was healing well, Furiosa was _complaining_ much more, and they hadn’t all been arrested.

Never say never, but they were all beginning to relax again.

*

That morning Furiosa, Val and Max took a walk.

It was more of a hobble, really, but Val had Max’s shoulder on one side and Furiosa’s arm on the other. Besides, she was visibly glad to be out in the daylight and  fresh air.

And Furiosa had been aching to take a proper look around for days.

It was time to see for sure.

Even after she woke up, Furiosa knew something was wrong. She didn’t need to be able to see clearly to tell that. The smell was different. It smelt old. Damp. Abandoned.

Over the following days, she’d gradually been able to take in more and more of her surroundings. The cracked plaster, the mildewed curtains. Now her eye was no longer swollen, there would be no more hiding the truth, whatever it was. This walk would confirm it.

*

“This - ” Furiosa stood looking up at the edifice. “This is not how I remember it.”

The image she’d carried in her head - the _memory_ \- was of boys in plaid shirts playing chase and throwing ball. Over there was the workshop. Oh, how she’d always begged the nuns for more time there after her homework was finished.

But it felt fractured, the image, like she was looking through a cracked pane of glass. She couldn’t see that memory and herself, Furiosa, at the same time.

Besides, time told no lies. This place had decayed from what she remembered, grown into something new, over a span of years greater than she’d ever known.

 _What did it matter really?_ asked a voice in her head, presumably the one tasked with keeping her from unraveling. _It’s kind of liberating really. After all, hadn’t Max taken refuge in this very thing? To distance himself from bad memories?_

The thing was, Furiosa didn’t really _have_ many traumatic memories, apart from what’d happened to her mother -

\- _to_ _Mary_ , she corrected herself. And she had only started to get flashes of that since Ace had been killed.

And the Vuvalini wouldn’t turn her out, she knew that, really. They’d probably known all along that Mary didn’t have a daughter.

It wasn’t so bad to have this life - 

But another voice spoke up now.

This life? How much life did she actually have left? How far was she into her lifespan? She didn’t even know how old she was -

She started at the touch of a hand on her shoulder.

“Furiosa - it’s okay. It doesn’t matter, really it’ll be alright”

Kind words, but they meant nothing. She struggled to control her breathing.

It’s no different now, she told herself. Humans _die_. But she’d seen too many replicants be recycled. That would be her. Had she even _done_ that job, or was it another implanted memory? She didn’t KNOW anything anymore.

“Furiosa. Look at me. It’s going to be alright. _Tell_ her, Max.”

Furiosa was distracted from her spiralling panic by the non-verbal conversation going on between her friends.

She’d been expecting more platitudes but, instead, Max fished something from his pocket, fidgeted and cleared his throat.

But still it was Val who spoke, her hands on Furiosa’s shoulders.

“Max thinks his blood might be a cure for - his blood might keep you well. Keep you with us.”

Furiosa looked doubtfully at Max, remembering how unbalanced he’d seemed when she tackled him only a week and a half ago. He was like a different person now, as he looked her straight in the eye and nodded.

“It’s the best chance we’re gonna get.” He handed a dog eared document to her.

Furiosa took the proffered paper. “What’s this?” She turned it right-side up and read - 

**Eldon Tyrell Institute for Molecular Research**

** LIFETIME Study **

**I, the undersigned, confirm that (please tick box as appropriate) -**

She scanned through the legal jargon. At the bottom, a scrawled signature next to MAX ROCKATANSKY.  
  
And below that, a name and a familiar signature that stopped her in her tracks. _Ayber Comgille Eridson_.

Her eyes blurred. It was all starting to make sense.

“You knew Ace?”


	22. Chapter 22

Some months later -

Just when it seemed that everything that _could_ happen _had_ happened, Althea returned from one of her trips to the city with a strange woman in tow. A neat little woman in a smart suit, looking distinctly out of place in Al’s second-hand pickup.

Cheedo had never seen Furiosa break into a run before when she wasn’t intending to _beat the living shit out of someone_. So it was noteworthy to see her go from standing to a solid sprint and have it end in a bear hug.

Furiosa held her out at arms length and stared at her.  
  
“Jesus, Giddy, would you mind telling me where you’ve been all this time? You’ve kind of been on my conscience.”

The woman looked up at Furiosa with a sharp laugh. “I could ask you the same question. Well, you’ve been HERE, obviously, I see that now, but you’ve been well hidden.”

Furiosa looked something between pride and regret at this. Of course they’d _had_ to hide, both from the law and whoever else might want to have words. But to anyone who cared about them, they were simply missing.

But Furiosa was clearly as hungry for news as Cheedo was. So many rumours were flying around, and they had no real way of knowing what was true and what was just lurid speculation.

As she ushered her friend indoors and the others followed, she skipped the small talk and asked right out -

“What’s really been going on, Giddy? You’re bound to have the inside story. The news networks are giving us nothing. Dag’s doing what she can with Keep’s code but she’s afraid to try anything big in case she gets traced.”

“Well, Tyrell - the company, not the man _obviously_ \- HIS troubles are over - Tyrell is in total meltdown. Not that the press officer would ever admit it, of course.”

“Does it have anything to do with Moore? His dea - disappearance?”

“What do you already know? I can fill in the gaps.”

“Well - ” Furiosa’s brow knotted. “Eldon Tyrell is dead. THAT much has been reported. Dag saw an Los Angeles Times email thread about a rogue replicant being the perpetrator. And an Offworld riot. I think that’s it. Hang on - _Al? What was that National Enquirer story again?_ ”

Althea cleared her throat and reluctantly replied, “Alien invaders crushed my husband’s skull.”

Cheedo thought it ruined her dignified mien somewhat.

“Well, they originated on Earth, so they don’t qualify as aliens, but they had the head-crushing part right. That’s what Roy Batty did to Tyrell.”

Furiosa sat down with a defeated air and groaned, “Offworld replicants rebel within months of their false Immortan going AWOL with the Head of Accounting? How could they NOT be connected?”

“It’s been quite a coverup” Giddy admitted. “The Offworld replicants were all brought down in the end. Tyrell’s killer was a hard one to take down, I heard. Some say he wasn’t retired at all, that his time just ran out - ”

“Roy Batty. One of Moore’s best” Furiosa shook her head sadly. “He went to Valhalla to become a Real Boy.”

She looked appalled at the fallout from their revenge against Joe. 

But how could she have predicted this? If even  _Furiosa_  didn’t know how he’d been brainwashing all those poor replicants with lies - ? No wonder they’d rebelled. But then, Cheedo mused, maybe it was just a coincidence. Maybe the Offworld replicants had been planning this for ages. They can’t _all_ have been Joe’s Boys, could they? 

If anything, Cheedo was amazed they were even having this conversation. If she’d been in Furiosa’s situation, she would’ve been more concerned with asking about her own history. The tiny matter of whether she was actually a clone, _aka_ a ticking time bomb?

“Wait - ” Furiosa spoke again. “Giddy, rewind a minute - they would’ve come for YOU, surely? I’m sorry - my infopad was compromised, I should’ve been more careful.”

“They did, but I snuck out through the bathroom window. I’ve kept a bag on the roof for emergencies for a while now. Plus, I’m a light sleeper” she shrugged.

“I kept my head down for a while, till I heard Moore was missing. Figured you had something to do with that, Boss.”

“Not just me.” Furiosa replied shortly.

“Well, I’ve been looking for you ever since. Ayber’s will was read, did you know?”

Furiosa folded her arms and shook her head. She looked tense now, constrained. Cheedo wondered if she’d been avoiding the subject and was uncomfortable that the topic was drifting that way. Her old mentor must know where she came from. Besides - and Cheedo shivered - wasn’t he some kind of scientist?

But she could only guess at what Furiosa was feeling. All she ever showed was that she was determined to show nothing at all. 

“He left you his place. And this.” Giddy handed over a metal box and an envelope with a key.

Furiosa took it without a word, stood up and turned away, carrying the box like she would a live grenade. As she passed Val and Max, standing by door, she gave them a look Cheedo couldn’t see. But she supposed it was a summons, since they both followed.


	23. Chapter 23

Cheedo would have loved to have been a fly on the wall, but that was impossible. On the upside, here was Althea playing hostess to their visitor. A good story was to be had after all.

“Did you say this Ace guy has left his apartment to Furi?” Althea asked, in a strained voice.

“Yes, she’s his legal next of kin.”

“That was nice of him.” Althea replied, sarcastically. “Least he could do, I suppose. The whole situation is inconceivable. And that was not a fucking pun” she added, under her breath.

“I’d be the first to admit his methods were unorthodox - ” Giddy began.

“Cloning a dead girl and convincing the clone she’s her daughter? That’s not unorthodox, that’s just - ugh!” She threw her hands up in disgust.

“I wonder how the girl hasn’t cracked. And Tyrell _own_ her!” Althea’s whisper was more like a growl. “What good’s a nice apartment to her if she has to stay in _hiding_ for the rest of her - ?”

She spluttered to an indignant halt. Cheedo could guess what she was thinking. If Furi could just run down some day, like this Roy Batty guy - 

Giddy raised her hands soothingly.

“No no no, they don’t own her. There’s no evidence that she’s any less born than you or me. Trust me, I’ve searched high and low. I should’ve known Ayber would see to it. Furiosa was a daughter to him. And she’s not a clone,” she added hurriedly, “ - although he _did_ use Tyrell’s technology. I don’t the precise reasons for doing what he did, but he was doing his best for her. She even has a Witness Certificate with _six_ witnesses, properly timestamped and everything.”

“Yes - well. It’s easy when you’ve got access to a whole biobank.” Althea grumbled, reluctantly.

“Furi had a whole pile of Witness Certificates for the Free Runners.” Cheedo piped up, earning a warning glare from Althea.

“Sorry, dear, you’ll have to speak up. Hearing’s not what it was, you understand.” Giddy’s face was carefully blank, although Cheedo could detect the tiniest of twitches at the corner of her mouth. Addressing Althea, she went on.

”You don’t need to worry. Ayber was no friend of Moore’s, I assure you. Like I said, I don’t condone his methods. He broke a whole _shelf_ of ethics laws, but his heart was in the right place. He didn’t exactly create a monster, did he?”

She gestured towards the door with an appealing smile. “He put his best into Furiosa. And the arm was _my_ fault, not his. Lawyers can hold their drink, but engineers can’t. This much I’ve learned. They certainly shouldn’t drink while working. My fault. Bad influence. But I digress,”

“Look at it this way, it normally takes about a year to create a replicant – basic genetic engineering from the standard template, then about eleven months gestation and maturation to adulthood. Ace spent three and a half _years_ on Furiosa’s physical and psychological development. That’s how important she was to him. I know, I know, okay?” she added, as Althea made a face, “But he really did his best.”

“I see now I may have been partly to blame. When funding was cut for the LIFETIME Project, Ayber simply fell apart. It meant _everything_ to him - to extend Nexus 6 lifespans, or at least improve their quality of life near the end. And the fact that the decision came from Moore - _ugh_. Ayber knew how his War Boys talked about him, the lies he’d fed them. The frustration must’ve been overwhelming.”

“So when he took an overdose - he was found in time, of course, and made a good recovery - I told him ‘you’ve got to either take things as they are, or play the system at their own game’, and that it was his choice.”

“No one will ever employ me as a therapist, but it seemed to turn him around. I thought his keeping the project running in secret, in spite of Moore, was his way of kicking back! Imagine my surprise when he showed me the incubation lab a year later. Hell of a shock, I can tell you.”

“In short, Furiosa was created as a vent for his own frustration, a proxy. Her name is a clue, right there.”

“But when he fully realised what he’d done, he wanted to make sure she didn’t suffer as a result of the accelerated maturation process. It’s not known for sure if it’s that or the cloning process that is so damaging. Furiosa is unique, you see. So when they had a breakthrough on the project, he tried to persuade her to volunteer as a ‘healthy control’ subject.”

Cheedo listened, fascinated, hope building. But she needed to have something made clear. She raised her hand and Giddy turned to her inquiringly.

Cheedo took a breath and asked the questions that had been bubbling up as she’d listened. She just hoped she hadn’t got wrong end of the stick - 

“Does this mean - she’s NOT a replicant at all? She’s just a genetically modified test tube baby who grew up super fast? And was Ace - Dr Eridson - her actual _father_ then?”

Giddy nodded, but paused before she spoke. “She is not a replicant. I can say that for sure. She is not a clone. She might not have been born, but she did have two parents, in the biological sense.”

She surveyed the room and sighed. “And I _assume_ he was one of them - since he chose to implant some of his own memories - and it would be simpler than getting a donor.”

She looked at them both earnestly, a mix of personal sadness and professional excitement.

”Furiosa’s case completely rewrites the current dogma, bridges the replicant-human gap. Or at least it would if it were known. And there’s no reason that it should, unless Furiosa herself wants it to be.” Her voice had dropped to a confidential whisper.

There was no time to reply, even if either Althea or Cheedo had known what to say. Cheedo certainly didn’t. Because footsteps echoed in the corridor.

”Ssh, here she comes” Althea murmured, getting up in readiness to give an awkward hug if needed.

Furiosa’s eyes looked a little red, but she was otherwise as she ever was. She laid out several items on the table.

“How are you?” Althea asked.

Furiosa shrugged and took a deep breath. “I don’t know. I don’t know whether to punch him or hug him, and I can’t do either. I wish he’d told me, but I’m glad he didn’t” she choked out a laugh. “Should I be grateful or angry? I don’t know.”

Cheedo heard Althea mutter under her breath, “That’s parents and children for you.”


	24. Chapter 24

They watched as Furiosa turned to the table and laid out the contents of her box.

“I’ve got some things for you all. Some of Mary’s things. There’s a recording, an old tape.”

She handed Althea an ancient tape recorder, the sort of thing reporters in the old movies might’ve used.

There were some papers too, fanned out on the table. Cheedo’s eyes roved over the top sheet guiltily. She probably shouldn’t, but - weren’t they just sitting there? They couldn’t be very private. Some were handwritten, others printed in age-faded ink. She caught fragments of paragraphs -

_…05-21-1992, Los Angeles, CA; ruptured spleen, subdural…_

She let her fingers spread the leaves nonchalantly. The various conversations faded in and out of her hearing as her eyes scanned them.

“I think it’s where Ace got her memories from. I don’t know what’s on there, but I know it’s basically her dying words. I don’t think I’m ready to hear it yet. Will you keep it, Al?”

_…duty in the ER when they brought Mary in. We did our best, and she lasted til the morning. While she was conscious, she talked, described who’d attacked her, what they’d said, clear and lucid. As she…_

“Val, Miss Giddy here reckons Tyrell might make a move to buy this place as a tax dodge. And as compensation - _hush_ _money_ \- to the girls for Moore’s doings. They’ll have to drop any charges - ”

Val caught Cheedo’s eye by reaching out and carefully picking up the old Sony Walkman that Furi had laid on the table. Cheedo had seen them in pictures but never a real one. It looked broken, but still had a plastic cassette inside. She held it wistfully. Maybe she remembered it from when she was a kid.

_…as she drifted off, she talked about her family. I recorded all of it at the time, gave a copy to LAPD. They never found her attackers…_

“ - it’s up to them, of course. And Furi too, though her name’s been kept out of the case for obvious reasons. Ah, she’s a smart one, no doubt. Didn’t trust her at first but she seems alright - ”

_…forgive me. I hope you find your family. You will know them, even if they don’t know you. Good luck Boss. Your friend, Ace._

There was an obliterated postscript, Cheedo could make nothing of it. She glanced up to see the lawyer advancing on Max, who regarded her with polite wariness from the corner.

_…material retained by the hospital and later obtained by Tyrell’s R &D biobank as part of a bulk acquisition…_

“Mr Rockatansky! Finally we meet! I’ve heard a lot about you from my good friend Dr Eridson. Your help on that little matter was very much appreciated - ”

_…right thing to do, to bring down her killer, whoever they were, using her own memories. By then I had my suspicions but no proof. That’s why…_

“Nice place this. Quiet. Guess it was been Ayber’s old school? I knew he was a Catholic boy. I should’ve guessed that she would head to somewhere from his or Mary’s pasts, but it would be a long list of possibilities. I was glad to run into someone who knew where she was, even if that someone threatened to kill me like a bug.”

God, Al, what did you do? Still, Miss Giddy sounded like she was smiling, so she can’t have minded too much. Cheedo tuned out the one-sided conversation and read on.

_No one had cared enough to pursue the case. You would care. You will make them pay. You are strong enough, smart enough, driven enough…_

Jeez, no pressure then. I bet she was glad to have read this AFTER the job was done.

Cheedo had talked long with Toast about what had happened in the Spinner. Everything had happened so quickly, she had spent hours dissecting the events in her mind, and was convinced that the final straw for Furiosa was the certainty that Moore had been one of her mother’s attackers. He had always worn those ridiculous high collars, and Cheedo had never experienced his attentions quite in the same way as the others.

So she had never seen that scar before. It looked like someone had taken a chunk out of his neck, long healed but lumpy and twisted. Furiosa had seen it in the brief struggle, and that seemed to be all she’d needed to know.

Cheedo replayed it in her memory often enough. Furiosa had definitely hissed ‘ _Remember_ _me?’_ just before she snapped his neck.

That look in Joe’s eyes as she said it - Cheedo liked to think that was recognition.

Glancing up again, she caught sight of Furiosa standing aloof, surveying the room, her eyes roaming between Althea and Val talking in low voices on one side and Miss Giddy talking quite audibly at Max on the other.

Feeling caught, Cheedo moved to retreat from the carpet of documents but Furiosa’s mouth tucked up in what she knew now to be a smile. She nodded her permission, so Cheedo carried on.

_… something toxic at the core of this business. Someone who only wants to control and enslave and corrupt.”_

Ugh, you’re right there, Prof Mad Scientist Dad.

_“… I am powerless, except in this one thing.”_

Cheedo set her jaw in sympathy, remembering how she’d tricked her way onto Joe’s Spinner. One thing is sometimes all a person needs, as long as they’re not working alone.

“ - so she collared me as I was leaving. Quite an aggressive questioner, that woman. Impressive. Only agreed to bring me here on the condition that I put a bag over my head, VERY Mission Impossible. AND she searched me for tracking devices. Impressive indeed.”

Cheedo smiled to see Althea blink and blush slightly as Miss Giddy nodded expressively in her direction. Old people were funny, she thought briefly, but this letter was too interesting to leave off.

_...may never have grown in your mother’s womb, but you did HAVE a mother. And a father who wished things could’ve been different…_

Like something out of some old story, she thought, shaking her head wonderingly.

“Guys! I hate to break up the party but - ” there was Capable hovering uncertainly by the door “Dag’s waters broke. It’s on the way.”

“What?? When?” Val protested.

“ - about half hour ago. She didn’t want to be a bother, but I thought I’d better come get.”

“Well, it’s good to have a lawyer around for a birth.” Miss Giddy beamed. “Witnesses all!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The term ‘witness’ comes from the certificate of birth which must be signed by multiple witnesses of the actual birth. Blood spots from witnesses were a later addition, their time signature is an indication of when the certificate was witnessed, an extra level of authenticity.  
> ‘Do You Know The Way To San Jose’ by Dionne Warwick is the official soundtrack to this story, for hopefully obvious reasons  
> https://open.spotify.com/track/1YIWYzMq84I46LmgX1vpye?si=oxmltOwgRnus_nbMG2oqGw  
> Here’s Roy Batty’s famous death scene, always worth a rewatch  
> https://youtu.be/nIDlTGd7Y9U  
> For the record, I think Furiosa will be around for a good long while yet, but then what do I know?  
> Here’s a nice review paper about telomeres and human disease if you’re interested  
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2190725/#!po=17.5862


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